Jul 24, 2020
Cindy: (00:10)
This is Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast episode 18. I’m Cindy
MacMillan and today’s guest is Lorraine Miano.
Welcome to Exploring the Seasons of Life, a podcast for women
with a big heart on a spiritual journey. Each week, join Cindy
MacMillan as she interviews coaches, spiritual explorers and
celebrants from all walks of life about beginnings, endings and the
messy bits in-between. Self-love, well-being, and mindset are at
the heart of our conversations because once you change the inside,
the outside will begin to change as well.
Cindy: (00:50)
Welcome back to Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast. My guest
today is Lorraine Miano. Lorraine is an Integrative Holistic Health
Coach certified in hormone health, and author of the bestselling
book “The Magic of Menopause: A Holistic Guide to Get Your Happy
Back!”, She is especially passionate about working with women in
all phases of menopause who have weight, metabolism and aging
concerns, so that they can have more energy, less stress and feel
comfortable in their own skin. .
Cindy: (01:14)
Lorraine, welcome to the podcast I'm so excited to have you here
and talk about menopause.
Lorraine Miano: (01:15)
Thank you so much, Cindy. I'm so happy to be here.
Cindy: (01:19)
So I want to start off with, what does exploring the seasons of
life mean to you personally or in your business?
Lorraine Miano: (01:27)
This is a very good question, and I know you probably will be
surprised by my answer. So when I talk to women during this phase
of their life, my mantra is let's make this a new beginning; it is
not an ending. Menopause is not an ending. It is a new
beginning. So I actually look at each phase of life as
springtime. There's always a new birth for every phase, whether
it's puberty, your reproductive years, empty nest, menopause and
beyond, I think it's time to embrace each and every one of those
seasons and look at them as a new beginning with new passions, new
purpose, and to live life fully.
Cindy: (02:08)
I love that. Thank you so much. So what led you to become a
menopause coach? Can you walk us through your story?
Lorraine Miano: (02:16)
Yeah, I've always been very interested in health. From the time I
first had my children and there were two major things that happened
in my life that led me on this journey to become a health coach.
The first was my husband was diagnosed with a very aggressive
tonsil cancer. He is a survivor, 18-year survivor, but it was a
very stressful time. And we realized that we probably had to make
some changes in our diets, in our lifestyles. Soon after that, both
of my daughters were diagnosed with celiac disease, which is, when
you have gluten intolerance. So that was an introduction into how,
what we put in our body or what we eliminate from our body can
actually heal our body and when I was taking some Pilates classes,
I would talk quite frequently about health and different things and
supplements I was doing.
Lorraine Miano: (03:07)
And my Pilates instructor said, you need to go to this school that
my sister attended, this would be perfect for you. So, she sent me
the link to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is the
largest nutrition school in the world. They invented the term
health coach. So I saw that program and I said, this is for me. So
I went through the program. I started my health coaching business
and I realized, you know, I'm a menopausal woman. I hear from so
many women that they are not getting the support they need from
their healthcare provider, from family members that they just
weren't getting the help that they needed in the world of menopause
from perimenopause to post-menopause. So I felt this could be a
woman that I could help. I had been through it. I was on the other
side of it and I knew all the challenges. So I figured I would
spend my focus on that particular group of women.
Cindy: (03:59)
When you have gone through something yourself. That is a great
opportunity for your lessons and your seasons to come through.
Lorraine Miano: (04:07)
Yes, I totally agree. And there are so many misconceptions and
myths that surround menopause, and there's still a taboo about
talking about it. So I feel it's such a great time with so many
baby boomers entering that phase of life to open up the
conversation and really put it out front.
Cindy: (04:26)
Absolutely. I saw that you had surveyed 100 perimenopausal and
menopausal women and you asked them 10 questions and I was hoping
you could talk a little bit about the survey and in particular, the
question and the answers to where did you learn about menopause? I
found that a really fascinating question when I read that, I'm sure
it's not where I learned it from. So I'm eager to hear what kind of
answers you got.
Lorraine Miano: (04:57)
When I did the survey, I really wasn't surprised at the answers
that I received, mainly because there are so many, like we said,
myths and misconceptions and this taboo and everything. So I really
wasn't surprised by the answers, but I just really wanted to get
the scientific aspect of it. So when I asked women, where did they
learn about menopause 64% of them said from no one or from
themselves. And basically, they did a search in Google, you know,
read some books, but basically I think only 16% of them said they
learned it from their mom and only 6% from their gynecologists. So
I really wasn't surprised. I have learned through menopause
coaching that the medical world, unfortunately, does not get the
education in menopause that they should be. I think things are
changing slowly, but I think somewhere I read that they have like
three hours in residency of menopause training. So many of these
doctors don't even understand what's going on.
Cindy: (06:00)
And you made a good point about all the baby boomers that are going
into menopause. And if they only have three hours, a lot more
information needs to come out from people like yourself.
Lorraine Miano: (06:13)
Yes. And because of the answers, I received some of the other
statistics were 86% of women said that they did not have a solid
understanding of menopause upon entering that phase. 81% said that
their gynecologist was not helpful at all in guiding them. And so I
wasn't surprised when one of the questions I asked was how would
you describe menopause? And these were just some of the answers:
annoying, horrible, a hot mess, a nightmare, uncomfortable,
confusing, a roller coaster, a struggle, hellish, horrendous,
scary, hell on earth. So when I heard all of this, I said, could
you imagine if these women had the education, had the support prior
to entering perimenopause or menopause, they may not have had these
experiences. They may actually have had a positive experience with
menopause. And that's where my mission is. I really want to show
women that this really is a new beginning and there's so many
positive aspects of it.
Cindy: (07:20)
Well, thank you, Lorraine, for having this as your mission, because
I guess I would say I'm one of those people who did the Google
search, you know, I just read books and taught myself what I should
be looking for if that's the right, right way to say that. So,
yeah. That's why I found it so interesting when I read that
question. I know there's a difference between perimenopause and
menopause. I've heard through my little Google searches, there's
like a 10-year buildup to menopause. Can you talk about that and
correct me if I'm wrong?
Lorraine Miano: (07:58)
Yes, you're right. So perimenopause is the years that are leading
up to menopause, which is actually just one day. It is the
12-month anniversary of when your menses cease, prior to that your
peri-menopausal and after that you are post-menopausal and women
will be post-menopausal for the rest of their lives.
Perimenopause can start as early as your late thirties, although
that is considered very early, and it could be because of some
underlying health conditions and it can last anywhere from two to
15 years. Some women go through it with absolutely no symptoms,
other than maybe irregular periods, some have what they call
horrific symptoms. And much of that is because of their lifestyle
habits, genetics plays a small part. But it could be diet,
exercise, their lifestyle leading up to the perimenopausal
years.
Cindy: (08:51)
Yeah. I know that there are a lot of symptoms. I think a lot of
times people think when they think of menopause as hot flashes, and
I know it's so much more than that. Can you just go into that a
little bit?
Lorraine Miano: (09:07)
Sure. Especially during the perimenopausal years, sometimes the
first symptoms that women will experience are anxiety and
depression, insomnia, irregular periods, they will have things
become dry: eyes, mouth, vagina. I mean, estrogen is responsible
for fluid levels, partly responsible for the fluid levels in our
body. So as estrogen declines, you might experience those. You may
also experience other symptoms such as weight gain mood swings. So
there are many symptoms that lead up to actual menopause, and there
are so many things that can be done to support you through that
process.
Cindy: (09:50)
What are some natural remedies that you talk to some of your
clients about for menopause or perimenopause?
Lorraine Miano: (09:57)
Firstly, I'd just like to say that I am not against hormone
therapy, you know, hormone replacement therapy. I just choose to
take the more holistic route for those women who may not be able to
do hormone replacement because of female cancers or just a personal
choice. So I know for some women, hormone therapy will be very
beneficial, but from a holistic aspect, I would prefer to get to
the root of what's going on. So in that regard a lot, what I just
described about women's diets. So many of the things that we are
eating such as processed foods, refined sugars, all of this will
have an effect on our hormone balance or insulin levels, and
cortisol levels. Stress is a big thing to reduce stress in our
lives is so important. Stress and sugar are probably the
two biggest things that will affect our hormone balance;
exercise and women don't have to do extensive exercise.
Lorraine Miano: (10:53)
As a matter of fact, when you're in your perimenopausal and
menopausal years, more moderate exercises are better because
exercise does raise your cortisol levels. And if you're doing
really extensive exercise, such as, long distance running, some of
this CrossFit and that kind of thing, you may actually cause
hormone imbalances. So things like yoga and Tai Chi, going for
massages, just different things that will reduce stress in your
body. Pilates is a great exercise to do. So I mentioned massage;
that's really just a relaxation technique, not an exercise, but so
yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, those are like great ones for
menopause.
Cindy: (11:32)
Speaking of Pilates, last year now I'm not doing it right now, but
I had started plots and I was going about three times a week. Now
it didn't help weight loss per se, but, Oh my goodness, I felt so
flexible and tall and actually less stressed.
Lorraine Miano: (11:52)
And all of those things will lead to weight loss. Eventually.
Lorraine Miano: (11:54)
Stress relief does help because those cortisol levels are
keeping the weight on too. So some of the other things
that we can do, there are supplements and two of my absolute
favorite are their adaptogen herbs. So an adaptogen herb is
something that helps our body cope with stress. And like I said,
stress is one of those big things that can cause hormone
imbalances. So two of my favorite are maca root and
ashwagandha. And on my website, I have a menopause market
and I've done the research. I've researched like the best products
and I have them listed there, there are different supplements. And
actually, one of them actually is rated as the number one
clinically proven hormone-free menopause supplement to help with
symptoms. So maca root is absolutely fantastic. So other things are
herbal teas like red clover and raspberry leaf is another great
one. So different things like that, that we can do to reduce the
stress in our lives, eat healthy, eliminate processed and refined
sugars boost up the hormone balancing foods. And I also have that
on my website. There's a free download of Eat Your Way to Hormone
Health. So things like avocados, pomegranate seed,
cold-water fish, all the good, healthy fats to all of these will
help the hormone balance in our lives.
Cindy: (13:13)
All right. Thank you. And you have a fantastic website and I did go
out on the marketplace and looked at through your resources and
there's a lot of good information out there.
Lorraine Miano: (13:25)
Thank you. I know I'm constantly on the lookout for the perfect
holistic options for women that they can use throughout these
years.
Cindy: (13:31)
And out of curiosity, does menopause have an effect on the adrenal
glands?
Lorraine Miano: (13:36)
As a matter of fact? Yes. And we talked about stress. The adrenals
are mainly for our stress hormones. So low adrenal function is one
of the most important underlying causes of menopausal symptoms
during the menopausal transition, the ovaries stop ovulating and
decrease their production of progesterone and estrogen. And this
decline in hormones can occur abruptly or slowly over time. And to
make up for this lack of sex hormones, a woman's adrenal glands
also known as the stress glands at this stage of their life are
designed to pick up the slack for the ovaries. So what happens is
until menopause, the adrenal role is to produce female sex hormones
throughout our lives. The adrenal glands are also responsible for
the production of cortisol and adrenaline and among other hormones,
the adrenals allow humans to respond to changing situations by
regulating sugar levels, adjusting our metabolism, moving blood to
where it needs to be in the body controlling electrolyte
concentrations and regulating blood volume and in doing so this has
an effect on our energy levels, our sleep our wake cycle our blood
pressure, and our ability to do the things we need to from day to
day.
Lorraine Miano: (14:44)
But for many women who have had a life full of stress, whether
they're raising children, have a challenging career, the stress
builds up, builds up, builds up. And by the time they reached the
menopausal transition, the adrenal glands are so depleted that they
are unable to produce healthy levels of hormones. So in whatever
capacity they can, the adrenal glands focused on the production of
baseline levels of cortisol rather than the production of
progesterone and other sex precursors. So increased menopausal
symptoms and related to adrenals deficiency symptoms such as
fatigue, insomnia, and cravings will happen. So it's very
important for women to realize and acknowledge the stress that
they're having watch for those symptoms of stress and really take
control of it. So they will not have depleted
adrenals.
Cindy: (15:30)
What can we do to, because it sounds like the adrenals are like
super important. I mean, I know they're important, but as far as
menopause, it sounds like they are really, really important to stay
healthy. And most women that I know anyway with their careers are
under a lot of stress. What can we do to keep our adrenals
healthy?
Lorraine Miano: (15:50)
It is very important for women to accept that self-love and
self-care are not selfish and that we really need to pay attention
to ourselves; taking care of ourselves, from our daily routines, to
being able to say no. And I know as women, that's a really
hard one throughout our lives. Being able to say no and taking more
off our own shoulders. So a lot of the things that we can do to
reduce stress are meditation and mindfulness, gratitude journaling,
deep breathing exercises, the Pilates, yoga, and Tai Chi that I
talked about. A wonderful thing. One of the most beneficial things
is what I mentioned before massage. And if you can't afford to go
for massages, because sometimes they can be quite costly. If you
have a significant other or even a child that you can swap back
rubs with. It's just so beneficial to be able to get the blood
flowing, get that tension released in your body.
Lorraine Miano: (16:45)
It's a really great stress reducer. There's something called the
the 4-7-8 breath when we talked about breathing, which is
absolutely wonderful. If you Google Dr. Weil, Dr. Andrew Weil, he
kind of came up with it. And it's kind of based on a yoga breathing
technique, it's called 4-7-8 breath. And it's basically something
you can do on a daily basis that will, the benefits will be
cumulative. So if you keep doing it, getting that oxygen and we
tend to be shallow breathers and we don't breathe enough deep,
deeply into our bodies. So to do these breaths like once or twice a
day, it'll actually benefit your body and keep those stress levels
low. It's very simple to do you breathe in for four, hold it for
seven and breathe out for eight for a series of four breaths. And
you could do it any time that you're stressed before bedtime. When
you get up in the morning. And I have women who do it and fall
asleep before they even finish it. So it is so beneficial.
Cindy: (17:41)
Yeah. I realized when you started talking about being shallow
breathers, that I was actually holding my breath.
Lorraine Miano: (17:47)
I know it is amazing and where mindfulness and meditation can come
into because especially when you do a guided meditation, it reminds
you, okay, take a deep breath in, hold it, you know, let it go. And
it really makes you concentrate on being in that moment. That also
takes away worry because we tend to think of things that happened
in the past things that are happening in the future. And that
brings a lot of stress to our lives. So if you can just be in that
moment and be mindful, that is such a great stress reducer.
Cindy: (18:17)
Well, thank you for all those tips. I appreciate that. You've
already talked a lot about the health of our hormones. Is there
anything else around our hormones that is beneficial to women in
perimenopause or menopause?
Lorraine Miano: (18:34)
Yeah, I mean, we talked about diet. That's really a big one and
women tend to think that they may be able to just take a magic
pill. And although there are great supplements, I totally support
using supplements, really getting to putting what's in our body,
putting what's good into our body. That's I would start there if
you're not doing anything else, eat more plants, eat more greens.
They're so beneficial to our hormone balance and reduce the more
that you add in the good stuff you'll be pushing out or we call it
crowding out the bad stuff. So instead of thinking of
eliminating things, just add better things in and eventually, you
will want the other things.
Cindy: (19:14)
I like that "crowding out". That's a different way of looking at
it.
Lorraine Miano: (19:19)
Yeah. I want people and women to realize that a diet, you know
because we always hear this term diet and I'm not about dieting at
all. A diet is what you do eat, not what you don't eat. So if we
eat the good stuff and concentrate on the good stuff, we'll get the
good benefit.
Cindy: (19:35)
That sounds like good advice. Menopause is different than what a
lot of women imagine. What is different with menopause for today,
as opposed to menopause in the past, I'm gonna let you answer. I
was going to say, is it education or what is it?
Lorraine Miano: (19:50)
Okay, well, I have, I have my own theories. Some, some of them
through research. So as we've talked about baby boomers,
unfortunately, baby boomer women grew up during the years when they
started spraying crops with pesticides where fast food was
introduced. So, unfortunately, we were introduced to many toxins in
our lives. So I actually believe that our menopause experience is a
lot worse than our grandmothers and mothers who ate more organic
foods. They also had less chronic stress because they didn't have
this bombardment of everything coming at you all day long between
news cycles and everything else. I don't even remember my
grandmother ever having a hot flash. I never saw her fanning
herself. I mean, not that it didn't happen. I'm sure that it did
happen, but I think it, I feel it was less frequent and less
intense than what many of the women today are experiencing. I don't
think they had any more knowledge about it going into it then than
the women today because the medical community was still the same.
And there was a lot of medical misogyny that still goes on today.
But I do feel that their symptoms may have been different than what
we were experiencing. And unfortunately, women today don't realize
that many of the symptoms are related to perimenopause and
menopause.
Cindy: (21:06)
When you were talking about era that we grew up in. I remember
being a little girl in a really tiny town here in the South and the
mosquito trucks going around, spraying the mosquitoes. We didn't
know, nobody said anything, and we were just out there playing in
all those toxins.
Lorraine Miano: (21:24)
We did the same. I grew up on Long Island. It was a farming
community when I grew up and the exact same thing, they would come
through our little suburban neighborhood, spraying the trucks. And
we did exactly the same thing. Nobody knew any better our parents
didn't know how horrible it was. And we did run behind those trucks
with all of those toxins that are endocrine disruptors and
cancer-causing. There are so many things in our environment
now. And that's the other thing that I like to teach women about -
how they can eliminate toxins from their lives.
Cindy: (21:51)
Well, you have been so informative. How can people follow you on
your journey? And can you tell us about your website, any workshops
that you may have coming up?
Lorraine Miano: (22:02)
My website is themagicofmenopause.com and I have some freebies
there that women can download that could help them in their life. I
have the Menopause Market on there and some other programs. They
can find me on Facebook, Making Menopause Magical. And I also on
Facebook have a, have a private support group called Making
Menopause Magical Group. So if you search that, you'll find that,
and that's a safe and private place where women can share their
concerns and their symptoms and get a whole lot of love. And from
not just me, but other women who may be experiencing the same
things that they are. And we have a lot of fun right now, I'm doing
several challenges for the month of July. One of them is a Managing
Menopause Challenge. So we have a lot of fun in there. I'm on
Instagram and it's @themagicofmenopause. And then I also, you can
find my book on Amazon and it's The Magic of Menopause: A Holistic
Guide to Get Your Happy Back on Amazon.
Cindy: (22:57)
Speaking of your book, I did download that and I started reading it
very informative. So if you could go back and talk to 18 year old,
Lorraine, what would you tell her about the season of life that
you're in?
Lorraine Miano: (23:13)
I would tell her not to look at each stage of life as aging. I know
I tend to think when we're younger, we fear, you know, our later
years in life and what's coming, I would tell her that to embrace
each and every stage of life as living with purpose and passion and
just make the best of every day of your life.
Cindy: (23:35)
Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I have loved every
minute of this. Is there anything else that you would like to leave
with any parting words?
Lorraine Miano: (23:46)
No. I just appreciate so much that you having me on here, Cindy, I
love your mission and the spirituality behind it. And I look
forward to hearing more of your podcasts. Thank you so much for
having me.
Cindy: (23:58)
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Exploring the
Seasons of Life and my conversation with Lorraine Miano. I continue
to be so grateful for your support and feedback, and I truly love
hearing from you! You can reach me via the website
CynthiaMacMillan.com or email me at Cindy@CynthiaMacMillan.com.
Cindy: (23:58)
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