Unarmored Talk

We Heard of Stress but Peri-menopause?

• Amita Sharma • Episode 111

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Stress isn't merely a term we throw around; it's a daily adversary many of us grapple with. And for women, there's an additional challenge: peri-menopause. Yes, peri-menopause! And it can begin in some women in their 30s.

In this episode, we delve into how peri-menopause, often shrouded in secrecy, affected our guest, Amita Sharma, Co-founder of NourishDoc , leaving her bewildered and fearful.

We aim to contribute to breaking the silence surrounding women's health issues like peri-menopause, particularly for those juggling the triple demands of career, family, and personal well-being.

Links:
Watch: https://youtu.be/2XTbC_DCRmk?si=Ci0hNk8UN_lj9pPt
Visit: https://www.nourishdoc.com/
Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amita-sharma-nourishdoc/





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Mario P. Fields:

Welcome back to unarmored talk podcast. Thank you so much for listening and watching each episode and continue pleased to share with your friends and family members and colleagues, and don't forget to leave a rating or review if you feel this is a awesome show. And you can connect to all of my social media on the parade deck Just look in a show notes or you can put in the search engine Mario P Fields parade deck and get all access To my social media. Well, let's get ready to interview another guest who is willing to remove their armor to help other people. Welcome back everyone to unarmored talk podcast. You guys know the deal. We have another amazing guest who's willing to remove their armor to help other people develop an accurate way of thinking. But before we get to our wonderful guest today, you guys know what I'm gonna say and if you don't Shame on you, thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you from the charity from still serving incorporated to. We're going on year forward, rapidly approaching your foreign production. Can't do it out, you guys. So thank you for sharing, liking, subscribing, leaving comments, sharing this with your puppies, your birds, your animals, your friends, your families, your colleagues you guys name it. I'm gonna say thank you, thank you, thank you every episode. If you get sick of that, that's fine to send me an email, say Mario, stop saying thank you and I'll say thank you even more. Thank you, guys.

Mario P. Fields:

Today the show is being blessed with the meter Sharma Sharma. She is amazing. It seems like we've known each other for years, but she is the co-founder of nurse doc program. She is amazing. That program focuses on I'm just gonna give you guys executive brief of women's health with a holistic approach, which I believe is a very, very Important pathway and focus for all the wonderful women out there in the world. Before we get to the topic, welcome to the show, amita.

Amita Sharma:

Thank you, thank you so much and I love your show. I'm gonna say that I know you've been saying thank you, thank you, thank you. So I don't want to say love your show three times, but I absolutely. It's amazing.

Mario P. Fields:

No, it would in the and having guests like you that's willing to remove their armor to help generations, generations of people to come, I mean 50 years from now. This was still being production on audio and video, unless someone deletes YouTube, and hopefully that doesn't happen. Can you tell the listeners of viewers just a little bit about yourself and your professional background?

Amita Sharma:

Well, I actually have an architectural background. Believe it or not, I'm doing holistic health, but I studied architecture professionally environmental engineering and then worked as an architect, worked as an environmental engineer and for the last 20-some years, working in the software, had my own online furnishings company and from there, somehow, I am sitting in front of you doing holistic health for women. So don't ask me what happened in between, but that's what happened.

Mario P. Fields:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Flight 655 with. Amida Sharman as your pilot. We were currently flying towards East Asia, but now we're going to go to North America. I mean, you know, here's the thing I always wanted to be an architect.

Amita Sharma:

Oh really, oh, my God.

Mario P. Fields:

I always, always. I just don't have the aptitude.

Amita Sharma:

I think the creativity of Ira, if I may say so, we had been born in Renaissance, you know, when Leonardo Vinci, you know that was the era the architecture was so well-appreciated. Now we're living in the era of machine learning and AI, and you know technology right. It's a completely different era If you think about it. Roman civilizations, all those, they valued architecture much more than what we do now. That's my personal opinion.

Mario P. Fields:

Well, it is obvious that you're not a rigid thinker, very flexible in your professional skill sets and qualifications, but let's jump into it. I mean you know nurse, doc program, women's health, perimenopause. It helps people gain a better understanding. I've done my research on you. I've listened to multiple podcasts that you've been on amazing job. However, let's talk about when you started to experience some of the symptoms, if you will, of perimenopause and how do you navigate through that.

Amita Sharma:

I'll tell you it's very scary. I'm not going to miss my words. So in my life what happened is, as I mentioned, I had a company, a home furnishings company. I ended up selling it here in San Francisco to another dot com. At that time I couldn't handle selling furniture online. You know, it was a lot of work. And now I was still young and I needed to find another job and unfortunately, when I started working, my perimenopause symptoms also started bombing at me, which I was like, completely clueless.

Amita Sharma:

Now, if you can imagine, at that time my self confidence is a little bit low. I have nothing to do. I sold my company. I didn't make enough money to live the rest of my life Not working. I have to go to work and I start my work and I'm sitting in meetings and suddenly I can't concentrate. I'm like I'm having poor memory. I'm feeling low confidence and suddenly a hot flasher might go, come here and there. I'm like what the heck is happening to me? Honestly, to tell you the truth, I had no clue, absolutely no clue, that I am entering a thing called perimenopause. I didn't even know what perimenopause is.

Mario P. Fields:

You know I didn't even. You know, my wife and I we've discussed this numerous times, you know, and we're in our well. She's about the 30 over this episode is published, she would just have turned 50. So congrats to my lovely bride. And I believe that a lot of folks in their 30s don't even consider it, not let alone what is it.

Amita Sharma:

No, but nobody knows and nobody talks about it. The problem is you know you're not being, you're not told when you go visit your gynecologist or you talk to in your friends and the data now, because of our stress levels that are increasing amongst women, we are all working. So think about 50 years back. Most of the women were staying home. There were less stress. Men were the ones who were breadwinners. The stress is now omnipresent and more women are getting into perimenopause in their mid 30s earlier than they're supposed to, and they don't even know and so. But now the only way they know is infertility. Right, that is a high. That's happening more and more. We know that the infertility so perimenopause, infertility, early menopause is all correlated, but we don't even understand that we can start heading a term called perimenopause. If we had just knew, we would start kicking ourselves much better.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, yeah. Well, trust me, when we're done with this episode, my wife's gonna be super educated, oh yeah, and and all the the wonderful women in my network as well. Because this is interesting and and it's critical to know, because here you are sitting in his meeting your business owner. You know you're an executive, you're doing things you like. Okay, what did Mario just say? Is it hot in here?

Amita Sharma:

I know, yeah, just getting a heart flake right now, mario, I don't know what to do yeah.

Mario P. Fields:

what slot are we on? That happens that happens, oh my good. So how long did this? You know the these symptoms and this kind of this state go. You know, state of symptoms go on before you, you know, before you start to realize, okay, maybe there's something else going on.

Amita Sharma:

So typically a woman can feel the penny men pause, depending on each woman almost for seven to fourteen years. Can you imagine?

Mario P. Fields:

Oh, my god, crazy.

Amita Sharma:

Oh my wait, a minute, hold on, let's make sure the bike is on and how many years Seven to fourteen years and average age of menopause technically is 51-52 for an average woman out there, but that also is different depending on different ethnic groups. If we start getting into all those details Now, if someone is 51-52, minimum ten years before or possibly fourteen years before so if you're in your late thirties, you can start getting all these penny menopausal symptoms and start getting and, and there are about thirty five or maybe more symptoms that are recorded. Thirty five, can you imagine? It's not just one thing that okay, I say I'm having a joint pain, I'm getting penny menopause. No, there'll be thirty five different symptoms that can hit you from here and there.

Mario P. Fields:

You know real quick. Amita, if I may, gentlemen, if you're listening and watching this, share this with all the women in your network, I don't care, even if they're in their twenties. Share some of you guys might, as you got children in their twenties my daughter going on twenty, you know nine. Share it with them. And if you're, if you're wonderful women out there that are unarmed talk enthusiasts, share with your networks too. Thirty five plus symptoms you guys are hearing. I'm sorry I had to put that plug in because good gosh.

Amita Sharma:

It is scary. It is scary honestly, all jokes apart, because what's happening is it's a natural phase. We know that all women are going to go through this. Now the severity of that would be different based on each woman's lifestyle, ethnicity and maybe some genes could be. You know, all those things combined, the severity of the symptoms is what I'm talking about. But everybody's going to go through very menopause in some way or the other. That's just a fact.

Mario P. Fields:

And at any time during your experience, the depression and I tell you that were that thing, it is debilitating the depression set in Amita during this.

Amita Sharma:

Yes, yes, I did not understand. I always used to feel very low, low energy, I mean, of course that's the physical part of it, but low mental energy also. I did not feel my self-worth all the time, feeling negative about myself and thinking, oh my God, I just turned 40, barely 40. And then the depression absolutely, because the data over there is so alarming that mostly as you start getting older, the divorce rate starts going up. Believe it or not, it's quite alarming. And then if someone like me, trying to get back into the high tech world, which I have been in, that the older you get, the lower your net self-worth goes right.

Amita Sharma:

Because, the younger is more cooler, the younger technology is more cooler. So all those things, and certainly going back to work. Me personally, after having my business for 10 years the online home furnishings I had to equip myself with the right kind of education or even some kind of teaching myself again to survive in a corporate world. I had not been working in a corporate world since I had my own business. I sold my business and completely into a vacuum, I don't know what to do with my life. I'm still young enough. I go back and I'm like, oh, I did not know how to survive in a corporate American organization, so to speak. It's a very different set of rules over there and now being penny man apostle at the same time.

Amita Sharma:

So, it's like oh my God, I wish I'd never started my business. I wish I'd just continued. I would have been more prepared for all this.

Mario P. Fields:

I mean, it's like being successful has been my enemy. I should have never been successful for 10 years.

Amita Sharma:

And it's not just me. If you look at the data, just American women data, can you imagine 45% of the workforce in America are women over 45? Almost 50% of the workforce approximately and this data is a little bit old are women over 40 or 45? So they have to be penny man apostle because of the age. We know that, but nobody wants to talk about it. 9% of them, including me, feel no support. There was no support. Nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to support you. You feel so alone. You can't relate to some of the 20-something who are being hired. And then suddenly you are sitting in the meeting. You have poor memory. You don't think oh my God, I'm going to get dementia here.

Amita Sharma:

Poor concentration, right, oh my goodness, if you're tired, you feel lower confidence and suddenly all this. So it's not just my story. I think millions of women out there feel like that, but they feel they hold it in Like I did.

Mario P. Fields:

They got the armor on. They're armored up. They got to come on an armored talk podcast. Let's get that armor off and help some folks I know earlier I'm listening to you and you mentioned stress. I don't know if things have changed. I'm pretty much my own boss at this moment in life, but when I was working full-time, there's a lot of stress, no matter how much I enjoyed it. You mentioned stress, and so I believe you tell me what you believe, what you thought to me, how much stress played a role in also enhancing some of the symptoms.

Amita Sharma:

Oh, stress is huge. Stress is not only coming from your work, it's also coming from at home, right? So a typical woman at this age also has financial stress, right? You are now trying to maybe raise a family and you need this job at that time to put your kids through college or pay for their tuition. So huge financial stress. So if you need the job and you need the money, and then you're having all this stress, family stress as well, you probably have teenage kids who have their own tantrums, according to what you are. So can you imagine a perimenopausal mood swings combined with a teenage mood swings at home? Yeah, we're size-sh rockets up behind the group for small kids.

Amita Sharma:

These are really small foods. You'll get smaller. Just pull with your hands. Yeah, oh yeah, they're cute. Yeah, here, tee hee Carter.

Amita Sharma:

There is a whole atomic bombs happening at home, like all everyone kind of going in their mood swings and the financial stress at the same time. So the stress is huge and on top of that, you don't have time to do meditation or yoga because you're running all the time. It's like we all know we have to meditate, we all know we should go for yoga classes, but if you're working in a high-tech environment and the high-tech environment is brutal, I'm sorry to say that if you put 10 hours a day, I mean minimum, that is what is required. At least at that time. I'm not. I don't know what's happening now in Facebook and Google of the world. I'm not working there, but 10 hours a day, like you know, and on the weekends, trying to get yourself plugged in into what's happening in the world. Who sent me an email? Oh my God, I was number 13 to respond. Everyone must think that I am not working.

Amita Sharma:

So that kind of a stress, so it's actually very, very stressful, more than you're trying to create something productive you're worried about, oh my God. So it's huge. I'm sure a lot of women are going through the stress of working in high-stress jobs. Even if it's not a high-tech, you are a woman, you've got yourself a decent 20 years of experience. Now, if you are, you know, just entering your 40, or maybe decent experience and you are at a manager level or a higher level, like a seed level, the stress of as you go up the ladder goes astronomical, just to maintain what you have achieved. And then now you're hitting this perimenopause. It can be, oh my God. I mean I've been with some women with chiming in and say, oh yes, I am there, I have been there right.

Mario P. Fields:

I believe that after we've published this episode, that we're going to get at least one, if not my wife, we're going to get at least someone to go. I'm there like maybe that is what it is, and you know, the cool thing, the critical thing, is gaining a better understanding of the why, maximizing your resources so you can be a better version of you. Right, and especially in that C-suite world, that executive world, those tech industries you know my belief in. Like you, I'm not really in the tech industry, but with AI and generative AI and I have some wonderful, wonderful, you know, friends in that industry, I believe that the demand and competitive level in that industry is just increasing with the stuff.

Mario P. Fields:

So so now here you are and thank, thank, thank goodness that you didn't emotionally react. You thought through things. Right, you know you got to want your master's degree and hire, you know, lots of education. You chose to do these things. So now looking back. Looking back because I, you know, you know I mean we're just saying you're 32 now, but looking now, we're just talking but looking.

Mario P. Fields:

Thank you for saying that. Hey, mama, mama raised a good boy. Mama raised a good boy, but you know. But, looking back, what advice or pieces of advice would you like to give our listeners and viewers, regardless of the gender, so they can help those women in their networks?

Amita Sharma:

So I think it's happening to men as well in the mid-age, you know, looking into yourself, talking to yourself, I think, self having self confidence and self worth and believing in yourself.

Amita Sharma:

At that time I know I went through, like I said, a huge roller coaster ride. It was not easy for me to believe in myself at that time. But I think, just for a starter, maybe embracing a holistic lifestyle that I think all of us can do, living according to circadian rhythm, living according to nature, I think that's something everyone can do, right, even if you're going through this whole a roller coaster of work, stress, home, stress, but living a life which is balanced. Try to balance your physical, your mental, your spiritual and social, having trying to invest in good relationships, you know, whether it's your spouse, partner or family, friends, kids or whatever. I think that can help add the positive in your life At that time, and that's what I'll tell you, for me, having a solid foundation, relationships with your family, will help you navigate these kind of a turbulent time, so to speak, right, which we can all try to invest in Eating, focusing on nutrition, a good nutrition, and letting go of processed food. I know we all love processed food.

Mario P. Fields:

Yummy, all the French food and all kinds of things. I'm gonna move away from the camera on that one, but yes, we love the steak, we love all that, the glass of wine.

Amita Sharma:

but I'll tell you, for women, having late night parties and tequila shots and staying awake until 2 am, that's not gonna get you stressed out. Unfortunately no, and I love it a whole.

Mario P. Fields:

Was that, Amita?

Amita Sharma:

Yeah.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, and I like how you mentioned men, too, and just self-awareness and being open, because you're right, I mean you and I talked right before the show. I mean it was about what 2020 is, when the doctors like, yeah, your hormone levels are just super low, like hormones, like what? I'm a Marine. I mean I'm a professional, you know, at that time I'm in the C-suite, you know, I've transitioned successfully. How can this warrior, right, this United States Marine, have low hormones? He's like, yeah, you're a human, bro, you know you have low hormones, so let's remove your armor and let's talk about what happens when men have you know these things going on. So thank you for mentioning that as well and really love the part of we all got a network, but the relationships is critical in maximizing your holistic health approach and so you're having fun. You're not busy and I might wanna keep you because I love talking to you and we can my listeners, viewers, be like okay, mario, you really went way over your normal timeline, so how can people find you?

Amita Sharma:

You know they can go to our website, wwwnarristdoccom. They can send us an email. Hello at narristdoccom. We are on all the social channels. We are always talking about how women can navigate these turbulent mid-years of their life by embracing a holistic health and lifestyle. We know that hormones are going to play a turbulent role, but there are ways that you can bring these hormones in balance. The way you are talking about it, different ways which we are not getting into it in this podcast.

Mario P. Fields:

Yeah, no, thank you so much. You guys heard of ladies. Let's get those seat belts. So the seat belt signs are come on. Turbulence will hit the flight of life, but let's work with Nernst Dach. You guys heard wwwnernstdoccom. Let's connect with Amita on LinkedIn and let's get those seat belt signs off soon as we can. And, by the way, just because you think that men of pause only affects folks in their fifties inaccurate, inaccurate, as you guys heard it. Amita, thank you so much for coming on the show. Truly appreciate you.

Amita Sharma:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mario P. Fields:

Thank you. Well, guys, you know that they are everyone high. Sign off. God bless you, god bless your families and God bless your friends. You guys be safe. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye, bye, amita.

Amita Sharma:

Bye, bye, thank you.

Mario P. Fields:

Thank you for listening to this most recent episode and remember you can listen and watch all of the previous episodes on my YouTube channel. The best way to connect to me and all of my social media is follow me on the Parade Deck. That is wwwparadedeckcom, or you can click on the link in the show notes. I'll see you guys soon.

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