E4: "Empowering Menopause: A Journey with Mpowder Founder Rebekah Brown – From Personal Experience to Science-Backed Solutions"

Rebekah Brown, founder of Mpowder, shares her personal experience with perimenopause and how it led her to start the company. She discusses the need for support and education around menopause, as well as the negative narrative and ageism that women face. Rebekah explains the importance of supplements in managing menopause symptoms and highlights the need for transparency and quality in the supplement industry. Laura emphasises the importance of taking a holistic approach to menopause, including factors such as nutrition, exercise, and mindset. Rebekah also discusses the role of research and innovation in the field of menopause and shares where to find Mpowder products. In this conversation, Rebekah from MPowder discusses personalised supplements with Laura and how science-backed research is helping to make research backed products more easily available.

You can reach Rebekah On Instagram @Mpowderstore

Laura is a life and menopause Coach and a wedding Celebrant. Find out more below.

Free Menopause Symptoms Tracker https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e61009edab1950197f83896/t/62a0798f79934a0dfbdca666/1654684094105/Free+menopause+symptoms+tracker+

Email: laura@marvellousmidlife.co.uk

Website: www.marvellousmidlife.co.uk

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurashuckburgh/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marvellous_midlife/

Website : https:www.thechateaucelebrant.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marvellousmidlife/

Transcript

Laura (00:00.981)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Marvellous Midlife and Beyond podcast. I'm Laura Shuckburgh I'm a midlife and menopause coach helping women just like you to live your truest life in midlife and beyond. And today I've got a fabulous guest, Rebecca Brown, who is the founder of Mpowder.

Mpowder is a community company dedicated to providing insight and innovation in the menopause space to ensure we can all be men -o -well. Mpowder's philosophy is driven by an innate curiosity and deep respect for science and medical research, including the potential of traditional and complementary therapies. Welcome, Rebecca.

Rebekah, MPowder (00:44.846)
Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Laura (00:48.245)
I've been really looking forward to this conversation because as we were just saying before in our chat pre -show, we've been following each other on and off for years on Instagram and it feels almost like we know each other but we actually don't know each other. And so when you come on, it's almost like talking to a friend but there's a friend that I can find out lots of information about that I don't know.

Rebekah, MPowder (01:08.654)
the same.

Laura (01:10.069)
Good, well, it's gonna be lovely. So I would like to really start with how you started Mpowder and why really? What was the driver behind it?

Rebekah, MPowder (01:23.694)
Well, um...

Very similar to your own story, actually, Laura, I think, in that I had a really bumpy, perimenopause journey myself. So I'm a researcher by trade. I've spent my career actually in the creative industries as what's called a narrative researcher. So my time was spent listening to humans tell me really interesting things about their wants and needs and their lives, their world. And I loved, absolutely loved that job. I loved the privilege of talking and listening to people. But as I hit,

At 43, I became aware that my capacity to hold information, my confidence levels, my anxiety, everything started to shift. And to begin with, it was slow and explainable. I think for many of us, we're often experiencing external stresses in midlife as well. So my father was really unwell. There was always a reason why maybe my brain wasn't working, maybe I wasn't sleeping as well. But it grew and grew and grew. And it got to the point where I was so crippled by imposter syndrome and anxiety, I was going...

at five o 'clock in the morning to kind of prepare for meetings that you know I used to do with ease. I couldn't hold information in my head which is a real problem when you're a planner because obviously a lot of what you do is crunch data and I just couldn't, I couldn't have an opinion. My hair was falling out, I became really bloated, I had terrible acne, you know all of this was sort of like impacting on my confidence in myself, sense of self and I ended up at the doctor's surgery like so many of us do and this was seven, eight years ago now and...

And at the time, I think that the term perimenopause just wasn't common parlance. I hadn't heard the word before and my doctor didn't identify those symptoms or join the dots. And again, like so many women in our community, I was told that I was very likely to be burnt out or depressed. And I always say that I think being a researcher is what saved me because I knew deep down that I wasn't depressed because some days I could be running a small country. You know, I was like literally on fire.

Rebekah, MPowder (03:23.211)
In other days, I couldn't remember my children's name. And so I started doing research, which is I always do when I kind of get stuck. And the more I dug into it, the more I learned about this thing that no one had told me about called perimenopause. I also learned about the brilliance of our biology and our hormones. And I had no idea. Again, I think it's amazing how far we've come in the last seven or eight years, even just understanding my own menstrual cycle and the impact it had on my mood and my capacity.

I knew none of that and I also really, although I'd considered myself relatively healthy, I had no understanding of the potential of food and also the impact that stress has on every single cell in our body. So as a result of that, I started to get better. I started, because I'm curious, I started hustling my way into sort of functional medicine conferences, meeting with people really at the cutting edge of all kinds of disciplines, you know, from sort of Western medical protocols through to complementary practices. And I started to get better. And that's really where Empowered had began.

I was doing so much research, I was kind of gathering all of this data and because instinctive I always go out and ask other people because that's what narrative researchers do. I ended up with this kind of cohort of women navigating midlife with me and there was such generosity of spirit and I think that's the thing that always strikes me about females at sort of transitory stages in their lives. I think our biology is often seen as other. We do understand that we often need to come together to unpick stuff because maybe the institutions that should be able to help us navigate.

aren't always necessarily as up to speed and they'll often sort of pathologize stages that we're going through. And so I had this cohort of women that were telling me really useful things I wish someone had told me sooner. And I also realized that if you could smash together the wisdom that women carry in their bones with the insight and the innovation that was happening across all of these different spheres of practice, you could know no well, as you said in that introduction, you could actually navigate this phase of life.

reframe it because I think that was the other thing I was really struggling with was that it felt like such a bleak place to be and it really doesn't have to be. So that's how it started it's kind of like I guess a personal personal experience that kind of turned into this this accidental community that then just just grew.

Laura (05:39.925)
Yeah, it's so interesting that though, because there's so much in that that you've just said there. I mean, gosh, there's so much we could just pick out of that. But a few things that came up for me when you were talking about that is the fact that when you first hit perimenopause, I was the same. It's much different now, I think, but when we first hit it, you really did not know anything about it and you wondered what on earth was happening. So it was just very frightening on top of everything that you were feeling.

and I remember feeling like I was in a very dark place. And that whole thing about working women who have to retain a lot of information like you did. And our brain's just not dealing with this time very well. And actually, sometimes not being able to talk about that because the work that I do with organizations, this is a common thing that people say that I feel like I am not able to do my job properly, but I also feel like I can't tell anybody about it. And then they're carrying.

that as well as feeling what they're feeling. So there's, oh my goodness, it just feels like there's so much that is happening to us in perimenopause and often we don't know where to turn.

Rebekah, MPowder (06:53.923)
I agree. And it's really interesting, because obviously as you were saying in your intro, we've kind of followed each other's journeys quite closely. And I was very conscious sort of watching your story and how vulnerable and open you've been about your experience, how closely it correlates both with what I felt and also so many women in our community. And I think that that kind of shame when your body doesn't behave like you want it to is often the most damaging thing. And once you know what's happening,

then there's a route through, but it's that not knowing, isn't it, that's frightening, as you say.

Laura (07:29.269)
It is. And even with everything that we know now, I remember hearing Louise Newsome, Dr. Louise Newsome saying that even when she was writing some of the work on her website for perimenopause, and she was actually going into perimenopause, she didn't recognise what she was feeling even though she was writing about it. Now, I thought that was really fascinating that somebody, so it happens to all of us and the fact that we, you know, that we often just think it's something else, it could be our busy life.

lives, like you said, you know, your father was poorly at the time. There's always something that could be impacting on the way that we feel and often we don't put it down to our hormones. And I think also as women, we tend to just get on with things, don't we, Rebecca? You know, we are very good at managing lots of things until actually I was always very good at it, but I find that I'm much less good at that now. I am in menopause, the whole multitasking.

Rebekah, MPowder (08:28.114)
Yeah, but I think that's weirdly sort of empowering, isn't it? I think you're right. We're sort of taught to push on through and always deprioritise our own needs. But I think midlife, with all of the kind of destabilisation it can bring, also brings that opportunity to kind of reset boundaries, to reframe how you want part two to be. Because I think there's this, we're almost running at such speed when we hit menopause that if you're not careful, you know, the years are just passing by.

and you don't have that time to step back and go, well actually, how do I want this to be? I've got this next big chapter of my life ahead of me and there's no reason why I can't be well and full of purpose and all of the amazing things that happen to our brains and the way that we do actually start reprioritizing, I think is fascinating during the menopause. But I think that's also a gift. That is our opportunity to actually take a little bit more of life back for ourselves and maybe we would have done if we weren't stopped in our tracks. So it's kind of, you never want it to be a

terrible experience obviously but I think there is something in our biology's sort of like it almost demands us to stop doesn't it and to rethink what we need.

Laura (09:36.661)
It does. Yeah, you're like talking and I'm going, oh my god, yeah, exactly, exactly that. It's a time to, I almost think it's like a big wake -up call and we have to listen to our bodies. We have to listen and within that, there is that thing of having to give ourselves the time that we need to do that. And.

I actually think it's essential that we do that because I know from the women that I coach that if the women that come out sort of like inspired and sort of ready and they really lean into it, they think to themselves, well actually yes, I know this is happening, I really want to do something about it. But it's occasionally when I do some organisational coaching, there'll be people who are just sort of, I don't really want to admit that I'm in menopause and they have this kind of feeling that,

that they don't want to go there. They don't want to actually have to face menopause. And then that brings me on, actually, to...

Why is that? And one of the reasons I think is that we live in such a very ageist society. And when we hit menopause, because we haven't spoken about it or we haven't been educated about it at school and there hasn't been much knowledge about it and acceptance around it, there's that whole thing of shame. And it also makes us just feel older living in a very ageist society. And sometimes we don't want to face that either.

Rebekah, MPowder (10:59.923)
No.

And I think you're absolutely right. And there's some very interesting research which I've returned to a number of times in the last year because it really troubled me. I'm sure you've come across Gen M, which is a sort of a think tank for menopause in the UK. And they do a sort of annual, almost like a temperature gauge of how we're feeling as midlife women. It's a really good sort size of cohorts, like 3 ,000 plus women. And in the last two years, more of us now identify with the statement menopause.

Laura (11:16.117)
you.

Rebekah, MPowder (11:30.246)
as a taboo topic than we did two years earlier. And I think that's fascinating because I think there's an element of it coming out of the shadows. It being kind of pathologised and quite a lot of the most distressing associations with menopause being the things that the media would want to kind of focus on and those conversations do need to happen. But I think the issue then is how do we align ourselves with the life stage that everyone is telling us is almost like an end of life category? You know, why would you, why would you

want to be part of that? Why would you want to acknowledge that that might be what your body is going through? Because that is again it's a really frightening prospect because we're not having enough of a balanced conversation about the opportunity that midlife brings.

Laura (12:11.349)
Yeah, absolutely, and the positive side, which you and I are both huge advocates of that, but it's like you said, always with the news, they err on the side of catastrophizing everything, because otherwise it's not good enough news, and I just think.

We have to have a more rounded discussion and conversations. The more discussions we have about menopause, the better. But you have picked up on a good point there. And I think in the organisational sort of space where menopause comes in, because of all the talk of the negativity around menopause, I wonder if it's not making workplaces and organisations less...

I can't even think of the word, what is it? They are going to be less likely to want to employ women of our age because they think, oh my God, bloody menopause. She's going to be in menopause, she's just had a child, then she's going to go into menopause. And I think it's actually very negative, but...

What I'm trying to do, and I know that your work is the same, is that actually menopause is easily managed when you know that you're in it and you have the right guidance and the support, whatever that looks like for you. It can be easily managed, even though it can be a very challenging time. And I do worry about the negative narrative about menopause.

Rebekah, MPowder (13:30.133)
and we did some research, you know, because as you know we're sort of a research community as well, and we did some research last year around menopause in the workplace and kind of lived experience of people accessing it and also some of those companies at the forefront who instigated menopause policies, you know, like how they landed, what impacts it had on the workforce and sort of attitudes and culture. And what was fascinating again was this growing unease amongst women, particularly senior women in the workplace, around this becoming another really unhelpful label that they just had.

to then sort of defy or prove otherwise and a burden they don't necessarily want to take on. But I think, you know, to your point as well, the issue then is you're never going to get equity in the boardroom, you're never going to get equality in the workplace, women are never going to come in at 21 and see someone at 50 that they aspire to be if we can't support this transitory phase. And we also know from a research point of view that our grey matter grows, you know, we become wiser, we gain empathy and purpose. I mean, all of those things.

those things are incredibly valuable in the workplace. So not only can it be managed well with the right tools, it's also, we're a huge asset, you know, as older females, we shouldn't be allowed to leave because actually the value we bring is what's going to make the world well. You know, I often say, you know, can you imagine what the world would be like if women were well? It would be completely different. And yet we kind of just knocked sideways, aren't we, consistently because of also the amazing nature of our

Laura (14:48.373)
Yes.

Rebekah, MPowder (14:59.815)
biology which shouldn't be positioned as an issue you know it's there's so much to kind of harness yeah

Laura (15:03.349)
I know it should be positioned as a positive. It's just crazy. And you know, the whole, I've been listening to some fantastic podcasts lately and one of them is called something to do with the crones, the crones. And that, you know, a lot of older women words and wise words for women like witch and crone are negative. They have negative connotations, but actually, you know, we are like, you've just said, we are wise, we get wiser as we age and we need to be revered, you know, not always revered.

Rebekah, MPowder (15:15.645)
Yes.

Laura (15:33.303)
reviewing women who are younger and who look a certain way. It's about what's in here. And I do think that's a brilliant thing that actually we get wiser and we get more empathetic and we have so much to offer within workplaces and within the world as we age. Oh my God, we need to be shouting about this, Rebecca. How can we shout?

Rebekah, MPowder (15:55.254)
I know. What do we do next? Because yes, I know, we've got a lot to say. Yeah, I totally agree.

Laura (16:02.261)
It's...

It's unbelievable. So we've talked about the inspiration behind M -powder. So can you just tell us a little bit more about your supplements? Because for instance, I'm just gonna put a bit of context to this. And one of the reasons that I really want to talk to you about this is often when I am, and this is especially within organizations, one of the questions I always get asked at the end when I open up the Q &A is, is there something else I can take other than HRT that's natural? Because again, people think that HRT isn't natural.

and some people can't take HRT and some people don't want to. So they're always looking for something else that works. Now there has been an influx and a huge amount of supplements that have just come on the market in this last five years with all the menopause talk and everything, as you will know. With Tesco's and everybody's now, they've got aisles of all these things.

Which ones do women choose? And so therefore I'd like to know about your supplements and what makes them different and how they can actually help.

Rebekah, MPowder (17:08.247)
Yeah, it's a really good question because, you know, I'm always the first to say I think the challenge of the supplement space is that it can be very snake -a oily And as a researcher, one of the frustrations I had as a consumer was trying to navigate that supplement aisle and to not only understand what my body might need, but what dosage levels, what contraindications, what ingredient enables another ingredient to be more bioavailable, what should you take in the short term versus what is a long -term protocol that can really help you. And none of that appears on the packaging company.

currently in the UK and I think there's a, you know, I'm incredibly passionate about lobbying for greater regulatory guardrails but also sort of greater communication on PAK. And when women are considering supplements, before we sort of get to even talking about Mpowder I always say that, you know, the most important thing is to kind of look at that brand source, you know, and look at the kind of the integrity behind the company in question. Look at the kind of the ingredient list on the back.

the order those ingredients appear in because that will tell you the emphasis. So you know if it starts with a bulking agent or it starts with sort of cheap ingredients you often know that what you're buying is a brand rather than a supplement. And then yeah.

Laura (18:23.637)
Can I just ask a question? Because I think, isn't that the case on anything that we get labeled usually? So the biggest ingredient is always at the top, isn't it, going down? And some people might not know that. It's quite interesting, though.

Rebekah, MPowder (18:27.991)
On all food. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. No, you're absolutely right. And I think the second thing is to sort of apply that kind of rigor that we should apply when we're putting stuff into our bodies. So track your symptoms and see whether something actually does give you a sort of a measurable impact because good supplements should make a significant difference to how you're feeling after about 30 days. So you need to be consistent and you need to make sure you're adhering to the advice they give you about when to take it and how to take it. But if you're doing that and you don't see anything

happening within 30 days, it may be that your body just can't absorb that. It might not be anything wrong with that particular supplement. It might be something with your gut microbiota, but it also might be that it just isn't the right supplement for you. So I think just always ensuring that you feel comfortable that it's actually having a difference on you and it's worth that outlay because good supplements aren't cheap either. And that's the unfortunate truth is if you're buying something and it's really, really cheap, the likelihood is it's using synthetic ingredients, very low dosage levels. There's even a term which I hate in the supplement space.

I couldn't believe was used in one of the first meetings I had actually with a company that wouldn't remain nameless. They talked about marketing dosage and that's basically the minimum amount of a vitamin or a mineral that you can put into a product in order to claim that it's there and that is a protocol that's used quite regularly in the supplement space so they will really lower and get the cheapest and the smallest amount in order to be able to claim its presence and also the associated health claim.

Rebekah, MPowder (20:06.169)
on their pouch. So it is really important that if you make the decision to invest in supplements, you do your homework, you track your symptoms against that promise, and then you also ensure that you are paying, it feels like you're paying a fair price for something because unfortunately, unless they're a huge company, it's really, really hard to make very, very high grade supplements at a very, very low cost.

Laura (20:30.517)
Yeah, it's like you do pay, you get what you pay for, don't you? And I think that more and more so, I am aware of that because I'm somebody who likes a bargain.

Rebekah, MPowder (20:39.191)
Yeah, yeah, we all do.

Laura (20:40.373)
But when it comes to our health, though, I think we need to look at, you and I really like that. It's almost like you're testing yourself whether this is working. Because often, I've taken vitamins, and I must admit that I have never really noticed a difference with anything that I take. The only thing that I've ever really noticed is my HRT, and if I'm not taking that, but I am healthy, I do eat healthily, and I have a healthier lifestyle. So I think...

Rebekah, MPowder (20:48.887)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Rebekah, MPowder (20:55.511)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rebekah, MPowder (21:04.767)
Yes.

Laura (21:08.593)
Supplements especially have a place, they should never be instead of eating a healthy diet. I think it's instead of. So can people take some of your products alongside HRT?

Rebekah, MPowder (21:22.359)
Yeah, and actually a lot of people do. So we, you know, I guess the sort of the number of things to point out in terms of the way the M -powder community works, which is quite different, I think, from how the supplements are made, is that we have a very naturopathic protocol. So we come through that lens of naturopathy, which is about a 360 view to our bodies and minds. And so it's a whole food led ingredient list. So that means that we're using the whole food rather than just extracts. We do use extracts in some instances.

because they're particularly well researched but a lot of the time what you want to be doing is getting these really amazing naturopathic herbs into your diet which often aren't found on our plate so you know whether that's moringa or maca.

an adaptogen like astragandum. There's a growing body of research around the potential of these amazing plants to really support our bodies and particularly our hormones. And so it's worth noting that. And then the other thing that's worth being aware of is that to aid that tracking, we provide a tracking service. So when you buy any product in our range, we encourage people to track their symptoms through our tracking service for the first 30 days. And that not only enables us to

us to keep improving our formulations because we get real -time feedback in the real world as to what impact we're having. But that's also how we formulate. So for example, the last two products that have come out of our stable have been based on the insights that our consumer base give us back. And one of the things we noticed was we were seeing these sort of cluster symptoms which were happening as a result of the way our hormone pathways influence our bodies and minds. And so mood food came about because we could see this persistent cluster that if you were struggling with

Laura (22:56.949)
you

Rebekah, MPowder (23:04.363)
low mood, you're very likely to be struggling with cognitive functional brain fog issues as well as sleep and anxiety. And if you could look at how you supported that kind of hormone pathway and the way that our bodies were reacting to external stress, essentially, you could kind of put together a really beautiful little naturopathic formulation that would target those cluster symptoms. And last year we brought out gut instincts, which again does a very similar thing. So we use the insight that we gather with our community to

to both inform what we do next, but also to play back to people what they should look to include and how they can layer up. So as a naturopathic company, we'd never say to you that we're a silver bullet. So to your question around HRT, depending on the age of our audience, like most people in perimenopause who take our blends, about 30 % of them will also be taking HRT. And because it's not a silver bullet either, they will be taking it. And as you say, you see, you know, very many of us see a really...

good result to that HRT, I think it's often worth highlighting to people that you shouldn't expect it to work like an antibiotic, so it won't happen necessarily in the first two weeks of taking your prescription. But if you're working with a good doctor, within three months, you should really feel a marked difference to being on an HRT protocol. But then it's like, what else do I need? And quite often, the cognitive function may still be an issue, the anxiety may still be an issue, bone ache is quite often something that people talk to us a lot about, and gut,

bloating and sort of like new intolerances to food. So what will then happen is, is you can look at those naturopathic formulations to sit on top. So there's no contraindications with our blends with HRT. But then, you know, on top of that, the reason we have the Menowell program is we're not a silver bullet either, as I say. So maybe cold water therapy or maybe yoga or maybe breath work and being able to sort of access all of that is so important as you navigate midlife and also staying curious. So cold water

therapy may be fantastic in your early 40s but you may not not actually want to be doing it in your 50s so kind of applying that kind of robust sort of like analytic inward looking approach I think is so helpful because we will need different things as we transition through our menopause journey.

Laura (25:17.685)
Yeah, it's fascinating because a lot of people.

do think that one thing is going to be, as I call it, a magic pill, you call it a silver bullet, you know? And there isn't, I believe through all the work that I've done and from my own experience, is that there isn't one thing that's going to make menopause better or for you to thrive. It's a combination of things. It's looking at yourself holistically as a whole. You know, it's about your body, it's about your mind, it's about your soul, it's about...

everything at this stage and how you need to change your lifestyle to support you through menopause is crucial in the way that you can thrive through it and I really believe that. So I love the fact that you said, you know, it's almost like layering and yes, it's about finding things that work. Now when I work with women one to one, that's what we do, you know, we kind of look at everything that you've said there, you know, we look at nutrition and exercise and movement.

We look at mindset and kind of also what you're consuming mentally and how that has a huge impact, you know, talking about anxiety and sleeplessness, because if we're anxious, we're unlikely to sleep well. It's about looking at, you know, everything that you're consuming about alcohol. And then how do we then...

put into place strategies and things that can help. And that could be, it's very different for every woman, but I do see there are commonalities as well, and I do think it's about.

Laura (26:50.325)
making sure you're eating healthily, making sure you're moving every day, making sure you're living your life aligned with your values so that you're not always pulling against that and thinking, gosh, I wish I was doing this, but I'm living my life like this. And I know life's not perfect, but tweaking that and realizing that it's okay to want to do what you want to do in midlife and menopause.

and to honour that, I think it's really important. And I think the more I see of us as women going through this phase, kind of honouring those needs and looking at what we really do need, whatever that is for each one of us, I think that's a beautiful thing to see. And I think that's when I start to see women who really thrive. And I know that word's overused, but I do think it is a lovely word as well. Or blossom, I really like that word as well.

Rebekah, MPowder (27:39.356)
Yeah.

Laura (27:45.269)
You know, that you just kind of blossom and become everything you can be or that you want to be. And that's a nice thing to think that can happen in menopause.

Rebekah, MPowder (27:55.548)
Yes, yeah, exactly. That's all that sense of becoming the whole you. And I think, I mean, I have a lovely job in that I just spend my life listening to experts like you. So I'm not, you know, I'm not an expert in menopause. I'm not a naturopathic practitioner. I'm not a herbalist. I'm not an acupuncturist. I'm kind of, what I do get to do though, is listen to all these amazing experts and kind of collect the wisdom that they offer. And I think you're absolutely right. And I think there's also something,

Um.

You know, incredible about when I look at our community as to sort of what helps the most. I think there's something incredible about looking at how you digest stress. And what I found fascinating actually listening to all of the experts that come on to our programmes is even the nutritionist will say to you, there's no point even addressing what you put on your plate if you can't digest stress because your gut microbiota is not going to allow you to extract those nutrients. You're not going to be able to really benefit from a strong nutritional foundation unless you're

you're really thinking about what it is in terms of external stressors that are making you feel the way you do. And we saw in the pandemic, we were a pandemic baby as a community. So we launched our first consumer trial of our first formulation during that first lockdown when we all thought it would be a couple of weeks, you know, of sunshine. And what was fascinating is when we do our community trial, so aside from our tracking that, you know, customers can do when they buy

product, we also do a very intense consumer trial before we launch anything. And it was our first ever one, so we really didn't know what to expect. And you know, that horrible sort of scary feeling of sending out your product into the world for strangers to try and tell you each day how they're feeling was, it was, you know, very nerve wracking experience for me. And what was amazing was we were looking at the news at the same time. So we were tracking what's happening in the world and you could see menopause symptoms spike based on that day's news.

Rebekah, MPowder (29:56.783)
you know, so lockdown news, the daily sort of hospital numbers that we were seeing were materially impacting women's scoring of their menopause symptom severity on a day -by -day basis, which really hammered home for me the fact that you can be doing everything on the inside, but what happens on the outside, you know, to your point about what you're absorbing, you know, has a significant impact on the way our hormones behave.

Laura (30:23.285)
Yeah, it is. And that's where we've got to have quite strong boundaries in place around all of what's on the news and everything. I don't watch the news. I'm here at my mum's actually at the moment and she watches the news and she gets up in the morning and watches it and then she watches it last thing at night. And whenever I watch it, I just feel my energy level is just sort of depleting because I think as women, we're very empathic and I know that I am. And so I take on board all of this and I want to actually be

surrounding myself with positivity and things that are going to nourish me so that I can thrive and cope much better with the way that I'm feeling when I'm in menopause because I still, I mean, you know, you said I'm, you know, I'm an expert and I don't feel like I'm an expert. I feel very similar to you that I get my knowledge and from all my own research and from a lived experience and from everything that I do with the work that I do with women. But I think it's, I don't know whether any of us are, you know, are experts.

in this, we're still just kind of learning as we go along. There's been so little research done within the menopause field that actually, you know, there's so much that we still need to learn. But for me, it's about meditation is one of my greatest tools, Rebecca. Do you meditate?

Rebekah, MPowder (31:27.485)
Yes.

Rebekah, MPowder (31:38.205)
Yeah, I do, I do. And I had to learn that it wasn't sort of like a competitive sport, because I'm quite a type A person, I think, which I hadn't noticed. So I kind of, to begin with, I kind of thought I had to get good at meditating. And I think one of the biggest gifts to me is someone sort of saying to me, that's really not the point. And it's called a practice for a reason. And...

And I introduced that again during the pandemic actually as a result of watching the community that we were tracking, but also monitoring my own sort of mental health. And I began by shutting myself in the toilet, because that was the only time I could get any space. I'd shut myself in the toilet, sit on the floor and do 10 minutes of headspace before I started the day. And that became a habit. I've kind of shifted out of the toilet now, but it became the habit to do that in the morning, to hook it to that morning shower. And so now that is something that pretty much

without fail, I'll do each morning. If I'm feeling sort of fizzy, is kind of the way I describe my anxiety symptoms, I'll do it before I go to sleep at night as well. So I'll often do some meditation in the evening. And that's been really helpful to me. And I think, you know, again, listening to the breathwork practitioners and the meditation practitioners we have into our programmes, it's also about finding out the type of meditation that works for you. You know, walking can be a form of meditation, running can be a form of meditation, can't it? So it's kind of finding...

have to be sitting on the floor, it can be whatever helps you to kind of get that perspective and to listen to your body and your mind a little bit.

Laura (33:09.685)
Yeah, and to find some peace within the present moment.

because as busy people, we are always, and I'm very guilty of this, and it's something I work on daily, is to be more present, to be more mindful in every aspect of what I'm doing, because otherwise, I just feel like I'm on a hamster wheel, and it's going round and round and round, and sometimes I get to a stage where I just want to get off, you know, I want to just jump off this hamster wheel, so meditation really helps me to become present. And also,

One of the main benefits of meditation, I find, is it helps with self -compassion. And that's one, at the core of every woman that ever comes to me for coaching, there's an issue with self -compassion.

You know, that's the core thing that's inside. That's the root cause. And if you can start to build on self -compassion, to like yourself more, to love yourself more, the ripples of that are huge. In midlife, in any time of life, actually. And that's one of the things I think is fantastic about meditation. I use a wonderful app that I recommend to everybody called Insight Timer. I don't know whether you've heard of that app.

Rebekah, MPowder (34:21.759)
Yeah.

Laura (34:22.677)
I like a guided meditation, but there's so many on there, and there's courses and all sorts. It's fabulous. It is, it is. So we've talked about so much actually today, and I'm really pleased that you've been on to talk about how you feel that...

Rebekah, MPowder (34:28.287)
Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Laura (34:43.823)
supplements can help within the menopause transition. And I was really interested when I did a bit of research on you that you started, I don't know, chopping up things in your kitchen to start with and your grinding ingredients. Obviously, that's come on and you're not doing that anymore, but I think that's wonderful that you're really sort of...

you were really grassroots and you just got right into it and did it from your kitchen. And there's a passion to that and that's what I love. And I've always, when did you decide to just start grinding up ingredients?

Rebekah, MPowder (35:07.551)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rebekah, MPowder (35:17.696)
Well, I mean, I know, I look back at that phase, my poor family. And also, for anyone who's ever bought a dehydration machine, there's a whole world out there that you haven't discovered in terms of the excessive community that surrounds it as a sort of product. But for me, it was all about ease. And as a researcher, I was looking at these whole foods and understanding their potential. And quite often, it's quite large volumes of food that are required in order to deliver the impact you see in the

these clinical studies and I was really struggling as a mum to kind of get that stuff onto my plate and also sort of cater for children. So to dehydrate and then blend stuff and make your own powder was almost like a lazy way of me trying to get the right nutrients into my body and you'll be delighted to know, I mean it tasted absolutely disgusting, that I then started working with a naturopath and that was kind of the key, I guess, kind of step from being a researcher into wanting to do something with that.

that research, it was tangible. And working with Dr. Martens, who's our resident naturopath and clinician, was phenomenal for me because she's also a scientist, so she's got that kind of research rigour. She actually trained as a cancer scientist and so spent a lot of her early career in the lab and then fell back in love with herbs and natural remedies. But she sort of brings that rigour to everything we do and I think, you know, to your point earlier around how do you choose the right supplement.

I think the other thing that's always worth looking for is look to the brands where they will signpost what we do know and what we don't because I think the challenge for us as females and then particularly as females in midlife is there isn't enough research as you were saying earlier and you then need to sort of find that balance that you feel comfortable with as an individual between the potential we can see so there's often quite a lot of research that points to the potential of different ingredients but they're so small -scale they're so poorly funded because they're not the big fat pharmaceutical ingredients.

So look to the companies that kind of surface that and are honest about what we do know and what we don't know and then look for innovation because what is really exciting about the menopause space is as we become more empowered and vocal as females looking for solutions there will be more research that goes into this field I have no doubt.

Rebekah, MPowder (37:34.113)
seeing sort of new innovations coming to market, you know, both in the pharmaceutical and medical sphere and in the kind of naturopathic sphere. So you need to be sort of flexible in your own thinking as a kind of consumer and someone living through that life stage. But also, I think you need to be sort of aligning yourself with the companies that are kind of curious about that stuff as well. And Dr. Martens is a great support. She made the formulations really robust based on the insights that we now have, as well as her own sort of experience.

working with women for very many years. But then we're constantly looking ahead at what the potential is with new ingredients, whether that's new tropics that we're seeing, some really interesting research coming out on, or whether it is just cacao. So we've had cacao in our blends since the beginning, but there was some really lovely research last year that was a proper weighty research study as to the impact that cacao can have on our bodies. So we're starting to learn about these amazing plants and kind of almost like verifying perhaps what generations before us knew.

that gives us more confidence to then include it in supplementation.

Laura (38:37.909)
Yeah, that is really fascinating because if you think back to plant therapy from, you know...

many generations ago and that's all that they had. And we seem to have lost that a little bit along the way in the Western world. Whereas in the Eastern cultures, they still use plant therapy and naturopathy and all those kind of alternative therapies as we like to call them here. And I think there is a massive need to know more about that because then we have more choice and I think that's the key. As women, we want choice. We can research ourselves and then we can decide what's right for us based on research.

and what we think is going to work for us. Oh, I'm very excited to see where Empowder goes. And I think it's wonderful as well because I know how hard it is to be a kind of solo entrepreneur or an entrepreneur and a woman in this space. So I think what you're doing is really fantastic, Rebecca. And I think it's lovely to watch your journey. And I really hope that you just grow and grow because I think it's very, very beneficial.

And I would like to just let everybody know where you are, you know, where can they find you? I will put it in the show notes as well, but it would be nice for you to just speak it to if you would.

Rebekah, MPowder (39:43.81)
That's lovely.

Rebekah, MPowder (39:49.122)
So, yeah.

Well, we are a community first and foremost, so I always suggest to people they find us on Instagram. So it's at mpowderstore, or one word, and you'll find there sort of a blend of research, insights, stories, lives with medical practitioners, acupuncturists, complementary therapists, coaches. And then that's often where we will post. We do monthly Menowel master classes online, but then also you can find our store, which is where the supplements sit. But you can also find us in places like Selfridges and

and boots and cult beauty. And if you're happier buying from those places where you're filling your basket, then you can find MPOWDER there too.

Laura (40:33.013)
So you can be found wherever people get their supplements from really and online. So that's good to know. And you're in Selfridges, which is wonderful.

Rebekah, MPowder (40:42.498)
Yeah, they are. I mean, they are a wonderful partner. We've been so lucky in that because we know we are a tiny, tiny business, but we've been so lucky with the support that retail has given us. And I think, you know, quite a few of those brands are actually at the forefront. If I think back to sort of sexual pleasure and some of the other taboos associated with being female, they're often at the forefront of kind of prompting that re -evaluation. I think Selfridges particularly, often sort of not recognised for being as forward thinking as they are, but they, yeah, they gave us,

a chance very very early in our journey so I'm very grateful to them for that. Yeah.

Laura (41:17.237)
And sometimes that's just what you need, isn't it, when you're starting out? You know, if somebody can just have that faith in you, and then it really pushes you to keep going, and it's absolutely brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Rebecca. It's been really lovely to speak to you at last, and I hope everybody's enjoyed this. And I just want to say as well, if people want to track their symptoms, I know you said that you've got yours or something on your website. There's a symptom tracker on my website as well, where I do think it's really good idea.

Rebekah, MPowder (41:31.171)
Well, you too.

Laura (41:44.565)
even if you're not taking supplements, to just start tracking your signs and your symptoms or your impacts, as I call them now, when you're heading into menopause and from perimenopause, just so that you're armed with the right information, so that you can then be your own advocate and go and see your GP with the right information and don't just sort of like get fobbed off with antidepressants or whatever. So yes, it's been lovely to speak to you and I will see you, see you on the web, I'm sure, on Instagram.

Rebekah, MPowder (42:01.187)
soon.

Rebekah, MPowder (42:09.283)
Thank you.

Laura, thank you. I've loved it. Thank you very much.

Laura (42:14.677)
My pleasure, bye.