Cortisol, Stress, and Protecting Your Hormones as You Age with Nicki Williams

This is the transcript of an interview hosted on Ruth’s Feel Better. Live Free. podcast.

Ruth Soukup: How much do you really think about aging and what it means for your body and particularly for your hormones? I think so often we take it for granted that we’re getting older, but we don’t always realize just how much we can actually do to make this midlife phase a little easier, healthier, and more comfortable as we go through the inevitable changes that come with perimenopause and menopause.

But there actually is a lot we can do, not just to improve our quality of life right now, but to keep our bodies strong and healthy for the next several decades. And that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about today with our special guest, hormone expert Nikki Williams.

Welcome to the feel better, live free podcast brought to you by Thinlicious. I’m your host, Ruth Sucup, and here we’ll talk about everything from the science of weight loss to practical tips for making your health a priority in the midst of a busy life. It’s a little bit nerdy, a little bit funny, and a little bit revolutionary.

So buckle up, friend, because it’s about to get real.

Hey there, and welcome back to the feel better, live free podcast. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Ruth Soukup and I’m the founder of Thinlicious and the creator of the thin adapted system, as well as the New York times bestselling author of seven books. And today we’re going to be chatting with Nikki Williams, who is an award winning nutritionist, author, speaker, and woman’s health expert specializing in hormone balance and menopause for women over 50.

She is dedicated to helping women reclaim their hormonal health and unlock a life filled with vitality and joy through her podcast, happy hormones for life. And today she’s sharing some amazing advice for how to age more gracefully and vibrantly through protecting your hormones. She has so much incredible wisdom to share, and so, without further ado, I am so excited to be able to introduce you to today’s interview guest, Nikki Williams.

Nikki, thank you so much for being here today. I’m so excited to talk to you. Thank you so much, Ruth. I’m really excited to be here. So why don’t we just start by hearing a little bit about you, who you are, what you do and how you got to be doing what you are now. 

Nicki Williams: Brilliant. Yeah. So I am a qualified nutritionist.

I’m a hormone expert. Um, but I wasn’t always that, obviously there’s always a transformation story, but in my early forties, I was working in a very responsible corporate job, um, for an airline, uh, Virgin Atlantic, you might’ve heard of them. And I had a big team, a very responsible job. And I had two young kids at home.

They were around like six and eight, something like that. And, um, I was in my early forties and I, I had always been able to manage stress and kind of juggle all the plates that we’re given, but I was really struggling, starting to struggle with exhaustion, brain fog. I was missing, forgetting people’s names and what I was doing at work.

Um, just generally really bad moods, really irritable and snappy with my family. And I was putting weight on around my belly area, which I had always been able to manage before and I just couldn’t shift it. And I felt like life was just a massive struggle. It was just a to do list every day. I wasn’t feeling any joy.

I wasn’t feeling the joy from my kids that I, you know, really was desperate to be a good mom. And I didn’t feel like that at all. So I went to my doctor and, you know, I’ve heard this story so many times. I’m sure you have sat my, uh, very brief appointment, told him all my symptoms. And he just handed me a prescription that said Prozac.

And this was, um, 15 years ago. So I guess that was the Trendy antidepressant of the day. I knew what it was, but I didn’t know much else. Um, I knew what it was, but I really instinctively felt that it wasn’t that. Cause I said to the doctor, look, I don’t have it in my family. I don’t, um, I’ve never had it before.

I don’t think it’s that I don’t, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that. And he said, no, no, no, it’ll, it’ll help you. It’ll make you feel better. So I went away thinking this can’t be it. What’s going on now? Luckily. My dad is a hormone doctor. Now I didn’t really know what that was back in the day. So I didn’t have any clue about my health or hormones.

I just didn’t know what anything about anything. So I rang him up and I said, dad, you know, I don’t know this is anything to do with hormones, probably not, but you know, this is what’s going on. And my doctor wants to put me on this. And he said, no, no, no, you’re 42. It’ll be perimenopause. And I went. What you said, what dad telling you this, that 

Ruth Soukup: is most women 

Nicki Williams: do not have their dads telling them and I really am so grateful for that.

I really am. Cause I don’t know where I’d be now. If it wasn’t for him saying that to me, that was like my mind blowing moment because I didn’t know what that meant either. So you grew up your whole life, having no idea what the heck he did. No idea. I just knew he was a doctor, but you know, hormones, what are they, you know?

Yeah, that is so funny. But I said to him, what on earth is that? 15 years ago, that word just wasn’t bandied around. We didn’t know what perimenopause was. Obviously we do now and it’s much, there’s much more awareness. Back then, I just heard the word menopause and I thought, how? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’ve still got a period.

I’m not old. I’m not gray. I’m, you know, I’m nowhere near that. So it can’t be anything to do with that. So anyway. What happened was he then explained to me what peri was, um, you know, all the symptoms, what was happening to my hormones as I was going through my forties and gave me the education that I never got at school or anywhere else about my own body and what was happening to it.

I was absolutely mind blown. I was like, How on earth do I not know this? What? This is such a major life transition. For 50 

Ruth Soukup: percent of the population. Why don’t we 

Nicki Williams: know about it? So it’s like, I couldn’t believe it. It’s insane. So I said to him, uh, so what, what are you saying to me? What do I need to do? I’m not, you know, do I need medication or what?

He goes, no, no, no. All you need to do Is make a few tweaks. So are you looking after your hormones? And I’m like, ah, I don’t know. I don’t even know what hormones are. Are you looking after them? What are you doing? You know, how’s it, how’s your, what’s your lifestyle, exercise, stress, sleep, blah, blah, blah, diet, all of that supplements.

And, um, what he, what he taught me was how to really nourish the hormones because I obviously hadn’t been doing that. And just a few tweaks in all of those areas. And a few weeks later, I felt so much better. I had more energy. My brain focused. I’m 

Ruth Soukup: in love with your dad right now. Like Yeah. Yeah. I want to go give him a hug.

Like, how amazing is that? 

Nicki Williams: Do you know what? I’m so, so happy that he was around and I had a whole newfound respect for him. I, you know, now, now I knew what he did and how he helped women. I, I’m just, yeah, I was so, uh, in awe, I think. So I took his advice obviously, but I also got tested because I kind of am very logical person.

I didn’t know if he was right or not. I, you know, I’m a little bit cynical like that. So I did do the test. And found that most of my hormones were pretty much on the floor and I was really surprised, particularly cortisol, actually, which is really interesting because I’ve based a lot of my work on cortisol since, because I didn’t feel like I was a stressy kind of person, but, but obviously my lifestyle was, was telling me differently and having a different effect on my body.

Cause when I looked at those results, I was like, Oh, okay. I need to do something about this because this is kind of serious. So, um, lots of testing and then, um, putting those, those, those things in place. And I just went down this kind of rabbit hole because I was fascinated. I was equally fascinated, but also quite angry that, you know, we didn’t know this stuff.

And it wasn’t rocket science. You know, we just needed to know. How to look after our hormones better so that then we could be prepared for the perimenopause and then get, you know, beyond, beyond that, um, we, we would be in a much better place than most women are going through that transition. So, um, angrily equally angry and equally fascinated.

I ended up giving up my corporate job because I got so, so stuck into the, um, the, the science and the hormones and all of that stuff that I went back to college and studied for the next four years, nutrition, hormones. And then I founded my company, happy hormones for life in 2014. So it’s, we’ve been doing this for 10 years now.

Wow. And you know, educating. Literally 

Ruth Soukup: changed your entire life. Totally. 

Nicki Williams: Yeah. 

Ruth Soukup: Totally 

Nicki Williams: changed. Yeah. My dad is still working. He’s 81 and he’s still seeing his patients. 

Ruth Soukup: I love your dad. I love your dad. Like he can never stop because we need. People like him to save, to save women. Although now it sounds like it runs in the family because you’re taking over.

Nicki Williams: That’s what I think, you know, I always, my, I come from a whole long line of doctors and nurses in my family going back decades. So, um, I rebelled as a teenager and said, I don’t want to do that. I’m going to be the one to break the mold. I’m going to go and do. Languages and did all of that stuff and ended up in a corporate job that I wasn’t really loving.

I wasn’t fulfilled. So it’s a funny way that kind of life kind of spins you back around and you end up doing not, not medical, but you know, something to help women go through. Yeah. 

Ruth Soukup: Um, yeah. So you help women with hormones, 

Nicki Williams: hormone balancing, but you know what you, as much as anyone knows that hormones I’ve linked to everything, uh, gut health and, you know, um, inflammation and brain health and all of it.

So. Yes. Um, the, the, particularly the perimenopause and the postmenopausal phases where those things start to change. And that’s where we can really step in and give women the tools that they need to kind of really balance those hormones, but also reduce inflammation, improve their gut health, all of that stuff.

Cause it’s all linked. It may, and it’s very different for every single woman. Every once in a 

Ruth Soukup: while. So what do you see, like, because you’ve been doing this for 10 years now, like, what do you see as the thing that is like. If I could just tell every woman this one thing, because they never know it and it always blows their mind, like, what would it be?

Nicki Williams: Oh gosh, um, I can’t pin it down to one. I told you I was going to pull questions out of left field. No, no. I’ll tell you what, the one thing that’s, that surprised me the most in my work, because I first. But obviously I trained in nutrition. So for me, it was always diet, diet, diet, but sort your diet out. And, you know, you’re mostly there, but actually after 10 years in clinic, what I’ve seen makes the biggest impact is your stress levels.

And I know that that’s, you know, we all know that stress has an impact on us on every part of our lives and our health, but it’s not until you see all the women going through this, the perimenopausal stage that you realize. That actually stress us such a big impact that I would say it’s the number one determinator of how well you’ll go through menopause and beyond.

Wow. Yeah. I’ve never heard 

Ruth Soukup: anybody say that before. So, and I talk about this stuff every day. Um, but so I have a lot of, I have a lot of follow up questions on this. So, I mean, we live in such a stressful world, right? Like everything about our world is stressful and obviously you’re in the UK. I am in the United States and we’re in election season.

So it’s like, like stress is a super high and. Everything’s happening. And, and so like, how do you, how, how do you do, like that’s the, that I think I’ve really struggled with that, right. As a, as a mom, as a business owner, all these things that I’ve got going on all the time. Like, I know I gotta keep my stress levels low, but I feel like then I get stressed out about my stress levels.

Yeah. And so how do you actually lower your cortisol? Like how do you, how do you manage that side of things? Okay. First thing is not to get stressed about it. . 

Nicki Williams: It’s really hard to stress about. Um, yeah, we need to understand how important it is without going into obsessive stress mode, because if we as women, and I’ve seen this happen a lot in the last 10 years as well with clients is that, you know, we, we get, we can get a bit obsessed about our health.

You know, the walking well, they called it, whatever you want to call it. Uh, we don’t want to get to that stage cause that’s just adding the stress. We don’t want to be stressed about being healthy and being well, but we also need to take responsibility and also just make sure that we we’ve got a balance of some sort.

So I’m not going to say go and meditate for an hour every day. Because that will stress the majority of women out. Right. Yeah. So, but I will say that you do need to take some time for yourself and hopefully that’s not a stress. It’s actually a nice thing. So having some times yourself and I, you know, it’s hard to put a number on it, but if you can get 15 to 20 minutes, if you’re really pushed, that will do it, that would switch off that stress response for a small part of your day and help to balance and increase your resilience.

For the rest of the day and that’s been studied and there’s evidence. Just 15 minutes. Obviously, the more you do, the more beneficial it is. But if you’re tight on time. Getting up 15 minutes before your kids or 15 minutes before you need to, or taking 15 minutes at lunchtime. I know that’s really hard as well sometimes, but going out lunchtime, who takes the lunch?

But, you know, taking your lunch for a start. And then, you know, maybe a walk in nature for 15 minutes, or even just putting some headphones in and listening to some nice music. Just sitting still and not reading your emails while eating your lunch, that kind of thing. And then maybe at night time, just before you go to bed, you might want to use it as part of your de stressing, wind down routine, because a lot of us do.

struggle with sleep as well. So that’s going to have a double whammy effect. Um, but taking that time is, is incredibly important. And you, what we do as women is we, we sacrifice that time because we like to make sure everybody else is happy apart from us. So we’re, we’re looking after other people. We’re running our businesses.

We’re doing work. We’re, we’re doing everything except that thing that we really need to do, which is look after ourselves. And the more we do the other stuff. The more likely we are to go and burn out, and that’s going to be no good for anybody, for our income, for our businesses, for our families, for anything.

So we really have to focus on this because a lot of women are burning out. And there’s lots of reasons for that, um, that I, we could do a whole nother podcast on. But, um, if we can get preventative now, this is, this is the time to do it. And if you’re pre, If you’re coming up to perimenopause, this is hugely important because it’s going to affect how you go through perimenopause.

If you’re in perimenopause already, then this is going to massively improve your symptoms. So 15 to 20 minutes a day. Now you don’t have to meditate, although that is. Amazing. If you can get into it. Um, but if not, you can go for a walk in nature. You can read a book has been shown to lower cortisol as long as it’s not too stressful.

I don’t want to read scary one, you know, a nice book that you’re enjoying definitely works. Uh, walking, um, listening to music, doing something you love. And that could be just simply, you know, having a dance around your kitchen, gardening, whatever your hobby is, you know, doing a little bit. But if not, it’s just sitting still for 15, 20 minutes.

Now I know a lot of women struggle with that. Um, that’s stressful. I get antsy. Yeah, you do. That’s it. You can do. And there’s a lot of guilt and shame associated with it too. If you’re not being productive. Wow. You know, what are you doing? Are you, are you being lazy? What’s wrong with you? You know, why aren’t you contributing?

Busy, you know, I’m putting my fingers in here for the podcast, but busy, the busy badge is a, is a, it’s such 

Ruth Soukup: a badge of honor. I know it’s hard. It’s like an addictive, like hard to break that, like needing to be busy and productive all the time. So, but you’re saying that like, this directly impacts how well you go through perimonopause.

And then I would assume, cause you’ve been doing a lot of work on aging recently. So how does that affect even like how we age is, and how does, how does perimenopause affect 

Nicki Williams: how we age? Hugely actually, because we are, unfortunately, menopause makes us more at risk of things, uh, you know, more serious conditions as we age.

So it’s even more important to get through once we through menopause to, to really look after ourselves properly. Um, and that’s what really I get into in the book is, is to really look at each of those areas. Cause it’s, you know, if, It’s all about your hormones in your 40s. It’s pretty much, you know, get those balanced and you’re going to feel okay ish, you know, unless there’s something else going on.

But you know, hormones are really ruling the race because you’re on that roller coaster through peri. But once you’re through menopause and out the other side, there’s a whole different landscape waiting for you. Your hormones might have settled. But then there’s all these other things going on, like inflammation and, um, oxidation and generally all these aging pathways that, uh, we have to then take note of.

We don’t have to know too much about them in detail, but we do know we do need to know how to reverse some of those things. Um, and really look after our genetic expression. And what I mean by that is that Genes only actually dictate 10 to 20 percent of how well you’re going to age and how long you’re going to live, right?

Really? We’ve got a massive opportunity that 80 to 90 percent is down to us and our diet, lifestyle, and how we, how, and our emotional health. So, 

Ruth Soukup: so let’s, if we put a timeline here, right? Like, so, cause our listeners are forties, fifties, sixties, mostly. Um, so we put a timeline forties is when you’re really focused on just getting your hormones as balanced as possible.

Get your stress levels down, work on your cortisol. And, and we talk a lot about hormones on this podcast, right? And we talk about how to, like what to eat to balance your hormones and all of those things. So you’re saying lifestyle. Hormone balance, and then you get to 50 ish and actual menopause happens.

And then, so what’s the difference? What’s this, what you want to, I would assume you want to continue all the initial lifestyle work that you’re doing, but what if you didn’t do that? What if you’re just starting now in your fifties? 

Nicki Williams: Oh, well, you know, there’s never, it’s never too late to start. So that’s the, that’s the message you need to give across is that, you know, there is never, it’s never too late.

You can start right now. Um, because you know, Most of us, when we finish our periods, around the average age of 52, it can be different for everyone. But if you, if you finish your period at 52, a life expectancy of a woman is mid 80s, now 83, 84, then there’s 30 odd years, potentially, of your life to live. Um, and you want that to be the, in the best health possible.

Because lifespan is a different thing to health span, you know? So life expectancy is, is, is different. extending. However, health span isn’t right. So we’re still at the same stage. We were a hundred odd years ago where 50 percent of us will live in poor health. 

Ruth Soukup: And so those 30 years end up being not high quality.

Yeah. 

Nicki Williams: Yeah. You know, you’re, you know, we don’t, none of us want to be in, you know, end up in a care home or being, having to being looked after and the quality of life is really low. You know, you, you speak to most people and they’d want to go before that, you know, that before that happens. So it’s really important that we do this.

We start now in midlife. To make sure those years are the best they can possibly be. Not just for our health, but also for our lives. Because this may be the first time in your life that you’re free. Maybe the kids have left home or maybe, um, you know, you’ve got, um, a job that’s more stable or you’ve, you’ve got some money in the bank.

So you can kind of start to look at slowing down or you’ve got different responsibilities, whatever. Um, it’s a time when we can actually it’s an opportunity for us to transform ourselves because we’re kind of freed up from the monthly cycle. Everything calms down. We don’t have those kind of swings anymore.

And also we’re at a stage where we’re wiser, we’re smarter, we’re more experienced. experience we’re more resilient because we’ve been through so much. And we’ve got so much commute to, to, um, uh, to, to give and, and, um, so what contribute to the communities and society. And we’re not, you know, we’re not just for the scrap heap and the society will tell you that, you know, older women, they’re useless.

They’re irrelevant. There are invisible even, and you may feel that way, but there’s so much opportunity to not feel that way. And to really leave a mark on the world that you’re proud of. I 

Ruth Soukup: 100 percent agree with that. Like, I, I feel like this is like this golden moment where we have an opportunity, right?

If you can get these things under control in your life and with, with the lifestyle changes that will actually make you feel good for a really long time. Then all of a sudden you’re like, wow, my kids are grown. So I don’t have that to worry about it anymore. Like the world is my oyster. I can do anything I want.

And I think if like more women keep a start approaching life that way, like it’s like a revolution. It has the potential to be a revolution for this generation of women who have so much to exactly what you said, right? So much to offer. So, Going back then, like, what are the, what are the risk factors and what are the main things that we need to be looking at, like kind of in that, in that age as we get older and, and what do we need to focus on?

Nicki Williams: Yeah. So the main ones for women are heart health. We need to look after our heart because the risk of heart disease is, is gets worse. Relatively quite high after menopause, we need to look after our bones because we’ve got a risk of osteoporosis, uh, and joints because we want to be more mobile and we want to be able to move around as we get older.

Um, we need to reduce inflammation, which, which generally is the cornerstone of most diseases, you know, so, uh, we’ve got to make sure that we’re living an anti inflammatory diet and lifestyle. And that, that stress piece comes into this as well because stress promotes inflammation. Um, yeah, we need to be looking after generally everything.

Our skin, our immune system, our brain, our brain is so, so important because obviously the risk of dementia and cognitive decline is super high as well. So, um, you know, those are the kind of key areas that we need to focus on. Um, and it doesn’t take, you know, you don’t need to get into the science of it, particularly.

You just need to know, uh, what in your diet and lifestyle will support those areas.

Um, and, and yeah, because when you, 

Ruth Soukup: when you mention all those things, it’s, it almost feels like overwhelming, like, Oh, well, how am I supposed to focus on my heart and my brain and, you know, and, and, and like, it’s all these things and my stress levels and all this stuff, but it’s actually not so many things, right.

Right. Because this, because. A few things will help all of those things. 

Nicki Williams: Oh, totally. Totally. 

Ruth Soukup: Can we talk about that a little bit? Like, cause you have a protocol for healthy aging. 

Nicki Williams: Talk about that. It’s called embrace actually. And the reason for that, I really want it to be a period of time, a transition where we can, women can embrace it and really not be, not be fearful of it because there are some scary stats out there.

We don’t want to look at that. We want to be embracing it and making sure that we have, we are. As vital and as, as smart and, and as switched on as possible, but we feel good as well. And we’re feeling fulfilled and it’s not, it’s not just physical health that we need to work on. It’s emotional health.

Cause that has a massive impact on the body, which is why I’ve included it in the embrace protocol. So the E of embraces eat, and obviously this is all the dietary stuff, which actually, like you say, comes from that, that. Heritmenopausal, looking after your hormones naturally and all of that stuff. And it’s just making sure that your plate is a good one.

I’m not going to go into the foods because everybody knows, should know kind of what we 

Ruth Soukup: talk about all the things to eat and not to eat all the time. 

Nicki Williams: And I think maybe a couple of changes that might happen as you go through your fifties that, you know, maybe you can get away within your forties. So things, there’s a couple of things that you might need to tweak.

The first one is alcohol. Because it’s so it can be so damaging to the brain and the gut and it disrupts your blood sugar. So it’s going to have an impact on those statistics of those diseases. So we really need to cut back or give up if you can. Um, which is always what’s the 

Ruth Soukup: age cut off on that one?

I’m just asking for a friend.

Nicki Williams: Yeah, me too. It was really hard for me to give up that evening glass of wine. I know, I was, I was sort of thinking I would give up in my early fifties, but I’m 57. I still have my, um, red wine and my gin and tonic, so I’m not there yet, but I do. I am so, so aware of what it does to me now. So the minute it starts, you know, hitting my head, that’s it.

Like one glass or whatever it is on that particular day. And I find like also my. If I’ve had a particularly stressful day, it’s worse. For instance, if I hadn’t slept properly, it’s worse. So you kind of have to just listen to your body and work out what your limits are and really, really stay hydrated. I think, you know, just stay hydrated and then you can have the odd.

Glass as a treat, but, but kind of keep it as a treat rather than an everyday. And I know that’s difficult to, and the other thing that we really need to be very mindful of as we go through our fifties and beyond is carbohydrates. And I know we talk a lot about that, but they have. Um, it’s very, very difficult post menopause to, to be, uh, to regulate, to metabolize, um, those refined carbohydrates.

So we’ve got to stick to the complex carbs as our carbs. Um, because post menopause, we just don’t have that, that ability to metabolize them very well. So we just can’t handle them as well. And we, we’re very at risk of insulin resistance and that leads to inflammation and all, all these other things. So if we can have a better relationship with our carbohydrates and our alcohol, um, and do all the other things that we were already doing, then, um, we’re going to have, uh, uh, a fighting chance of, um, a good, healthy body and mind.

I love that. So that’s the E, right? That 

Ruth Soukup: was the E portion. 

Nicki Williams: I’ll run through the others very quickly. So, Amy’s move. And movement daily, um, is, uh, incredibly important as we know. So that is just about getting that routine that works for you. The three S’s, I call it. The sweat, the strengthen, and the stretch.

Get a kind of mixture of those in your routine as much as you can. Doesn’t, you know, do it to your level, um, but do it, and also do it so that, you know, You’re enjoying it rather than it’s a stress because that’s another thing and be stressful is exercise. We want to be doing things that we love and if that’s again dancing around the kitchen instead of going to the gym, that’s all cool as well.

Um, the B is balance your hormones because we still have to look after those pesky hormones. Yeah. Um, so it is this time, you know, as you get older, it’s about yes, cortisol that’s still playing a high impact role. So just making sure we’re still looking after ourselves doing our daily switch offs wherever possible, looking after the thyroid as well, because that as we age, get kind of more wear and tear and starts to kind of.

stutter a little bit. So this such an important hormone thyroid that we need to really make sure that it’s optimal and not just sitting at the bottom of the normal range when you get tested. And also if you can go private to get it tested properly, because I think it’s the same in the States, but here.

In the UK, we only test the TSH and the T4 occasionally, but it’s not the whole pathway. So we, we never really know how well our thyroid is doing until we go and do it in the private sector. And those tests are coming right down now. So they’re fairly affordable now. 

Ruth Soukup: Right. So is there, is there anything that you recommend specifically for thyroid health?

That’s not synthroid? 

Nicki Williams: Very nutrient reliant. So you’ve got to get those nutrients in protein particularly. Oh, that’s the other thing in the diet thing that we need to study. start upping our protein because we’re losing muscle very quickly. Um, but so thyroid loves protein. Um, it also loves selenium and a few of these other vitamins and minerals.

So taking a kind of multi vitamin would probably, you know, be a good option for many of us, um, in terms of supporting your thyroid, um, but also exercise and stress management. So key. Both of those affect how well your thyroid’s working. Uh, so yeah. And if you need medication, you know, that’s fine. You know, just get, get yourself tested because the last thing you want to do is suffer with an underactive thyroid.

It’s really not nice. You’ll be exhausted and you’re never going to lose weight with an underactive or high thyroid condition. Um, the next hormone is insulin. We’ve got to manage that. Um, because, uh, that, uh, blood sugar management is so important. We’ve already talked a little bit about that, but making sure that you’re Eating plenty of protein and healthy fats and, uh, not.

Not being on that blood sugar roller coaster is a good thing. And then lastly, sex hormones. So those are the hormones we need to be balancing. Whether you’re on HRT or not, uh, or you’re doing it naturally, just, you know, getting tested or feel, you know, making sure you’re not suffering symptoms of that sex hormone imbalance.

Because they’re really, really important. Estrogen is important for your brain, for your bones, for your heart. So we need to make sure that we’re either getting it naturally through phytoestrogens, plant like estrogens, through herbal supplements, or through medication such as HRT. I’m not against any of those.

It’s all about what works for you and making sure you make that right choice for your body. Um, R is rest, rest enough. We’ve talked about, so lots of different types of rest. I think we all focus on, you know, just sitting still, but you know, there’s physical rest, sleep, making sure you’re sleeping properly, mental rest, you know, taking that, making sure your work life balance is there and you’re not answering emails till midnight, um, spending time in natural beauty, switching off screens and technology.

That’s a massive one. Each of these is such a big topic. Yeah, I know. Social rest, emotional rest. These are all things that, you know, we, we don’t necessarily associate with stress, but they’re all there. So, um, but a big one is sleep and making sure sleep is such an important thing. I, I know you must talk a lot about that in terms of weight management, um, but also in terms of general health, it’s, it’s so, so important.

So, uh, breath work to breathing properly is a key. Um, Technique that everyone can do and it’s free. So we can start breathing properly because we don’t do it. We shallow breathe a lot and that gives us, makes us, doesn’t get enough oxygen into our, into our brain and the nutrients start to clog up as well.

So breath work, incredibly important for your brain, for your stress, mood, sleep, all of that. Should we move on to A? I’m whizzing through this. This is the whole book. Going fast. A is actually um, about those of, it’s actually for those of us who are a bit geeked out with this stuff and love a bit of a biohack if you like.

A is my biohack section. It’s for activating your protective pathways. Now I talked a little bit about that. about those aging pathways, the

autophagy, uh, oxidation, you know, those free radicals, senescence, all these things that happen as we get older, naturally in the body, um, but there are ways that we can Slow them down, like, you know, telomeres as well. I’m sure you’ve, you’ve heard of and inflammation. So we can slow these things down through certain, um, well through what we’re doing already with our diet and lifestyle and set, but certain supplements and also certain therapies.

So, um, we’ve all heard of, you know, heat therapy with saunas, um, that, uh, generates, you know, heat shock proteins, which can actually, um, increase antioxidants and reduce inflammation and reduce glycation, which is a kind of like a sticky protein process, I call it, that, that, um, produces that, increases inflammation.

So, um, things like having a sauna once a week, if you can get that, if you can’t, then, you know, a hot bath with some heat generating in there, that, that was really nice. And then cold therapy, we’ve heard a lot about as well, um, that produces cold. Cold shock proteins as opposed to heat shock proteins. And that does something very similar, but it also supports your immune system as well.

So if you don’t have to go and sit in an ice bath, you can just put the shower on cold for a few seconds. And that 

Ruth Soukup: doesn’t work in Florida where I live cold. There’s no such thing as a cold shower here. Isn’t that crazy? Because the ground is. That the water that comes through is not cold and it’s really annoying.

And so I was just actually talking to my husband about this yesterday. I’m like, I really want, uh, we’ve got to, cause we have this property that we bought last year. And so we have six acres and lots of room. I’m like, we got to figure out a place to have a sauna. And an ice bath, like I’m, I’m ready for it.

Cause I keep hearing about it and I can’t have cold showers and I want cold therapy. 

Nicki Williams: You’re 

Ruth Soukup: crazy. 

Nicki Williams: I would love that. I’ve got the tiniest garden here in near London, so I would don’t have room, but if I did, I would definitely be putting in a sauna and an ice bath. And I think, you know, you can get them, you know, quite cheaply these days.

Cause everyone, you know, everyone’s into them. I know, but so they’re not, 

Ruth Soukup: they’re not, So this is the question, right? Cause I’m like, is this just like a fad that people are talking about, but it’s going to be like done. And everyone’s going to like, I don’t know why we were so into that. It doesn’t do anything.

So what does it actually do? 

Nicki Williams: So when your body hits that cold water, it goes into a little bit of a stress response and that, but it’s a good stress response. Um, and it produces these cold shock proteins that I, that I talked about. Um, and then it basically helps your cells adapt to like a challenging condition.

So, um, but because your, your body is safe, then, you know, it, it, it realizes that it’s safe, but, and it increases your resilience. So next time you do it, you’re more resilient. And what that does is this helps your immune system. It really helps to make you stronger. And now you have to look at the experiments done on Wim Hof, the breath, the ice guy.

So that, you know, they injected him with E. coli or something crazy like that. And he didn’t even blink. It wasn’t like an issue for him because his immune system is so strong from all the cold exposure he’s had. So, you know, the stronger immune system, the more likely we’re going to live longer, basically.

So, and live, live better too. We’re not going to get those, those chronic diseases. And the other thing is light therapy as well. So red light therapy in particular has been it. a little bit of controversy over that recently because it’s quite fairly new um therapy in terms of well being and then there’s not huge amounts of research on it yet but it does seem to have some potential um With for that, that infrared energy, but it kind of needs to go deep.

So some of the cheaper kind of, we’ve seen all the face masks and stuff for your skin. Some of those are not going to penetrate deep. No, you 

Ruth Soukup: want to get a good one. I have a good one. And I do, I do sit in front of that. So at least I have that. 

Nicki Williams: You’ve got that 

Ruth Soukup: already. That’s good. Got that already, but I still need the sauna and the ice bath.

Off 

Nicki Williams: the box. Um, yeah. And then there’s the whole, you know, chapter I’ve got on supplements and what, what we need and what we kind of wanna focus on because there’s, there’s a whole, it’s, it’s overwhelming isn’t it? All the supplements that are out there. Yes. Um, so I try and make that a little bit more easy to digest for everyone.

Nice. And then C is the new, really one that I don’t, that didn’t have to focus on in my 40s necessarily because this one is about connecting. So connecting, I’ve put C is connect deeply because as humans, we need to connect. Connection, not just with other humans, but with nature, with our food, uh, with some kind of spiritual connection and with ourselves.

So each of those categories are just as important as each other. Um, and then what, what that does is that if you increase that connection to these things, you’re going to live a longer, happier life because you’re going to be switching on. Feel good hormones, endorphins, uh, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and those hormones switch on genes that promote longevity, right?

So those emotional, literally 

Ruth Soukup: it connecting makes you live longer and, and just, and makes your quality of life so much better. Well, it makes you happier. And we don’t talk about this enough. Like nobody talks about this enough when we’re in this world, especially now with social media and everything’s online and the connection is just missing.

I feel 

Nicki Williams: more disconnected now than we ever have been. And it’s got worse since obviously the COVID and the pandemic, we’ve withdrawn even more in a, what they call a friend’s recession where we haven’t. You know, lower social fitness, all of those things are being, those terms are being bandied about, but they all affect how our physiology and how healthy we are and happy we are, obviously.

Um, but they do affect how long we live. And there’s been lots and lots of studies on, on that. Um, even, even a positive outlook on aging for women, right? This is a massive thing. We’re told by society that, you know, aging is not good. Uh, we’re, we’re, we’re not wanted as an older woman. We don’t, you know, we, we, we have to dye our hair.

We have to, uh, look younger than we are, all of that stuff. And that has, um, that obviously has an impact on how we feel about ourselves, how we talk to ourselves. I don’t, you only have to look in the mirror and you’ll, you’ll spot every single flaw before you even, you know, Think about all the good stuff.

Right. So we’re talking to ourselves. We’re in a really negative way. Um, and society’s backing that up. Right. So we’ve got this. double thing going on. So it doesn’t make us feel great, but if we have a positive outlook on aging, it can reduce that. It can increase our lifespan by eight years. The studies say it’s incredibly important.

So the talk, the self talk so, so important, reframing our thoughts so that they’re more positive. And I know that’s easy to say, but there’s lots and lots of therapies and techniques that can help you do that. Meditation included. Um, but it’s going to get me to meditate yet. Aren’t you all the boxes, but, um, yeah, but you can still do it without meditating, you know, affirmation, things like that, but really thinking about, this is where the self connection comes in and really thinking about how we feel about ourselves.

And this is a really good time. If you’ve got a little bit more time to. Think about yourself and what you want for the next 30 years. This is the time to do that work, to dive a bit deeper and look at, okay, what have I done for the last 50 years? Has it filled me with joy? Uh, do I, how do I fit more joy into my life going forward and more purpose?

And, and. Make my life feel more meaningful, um, because a lot of women are missing that, that connection with that. Yeah. So all of these things, I know that they’re, they’re difficult to, um, to have answers to and they’re just think they’re just there. I’ve put them all in to really start you thinking about these things because they’re important when we want to look at healthy aging.

Ruth Soukup: Yeah. 

Nicki Williams: Okay. So last one is all about your gut, liver and your immune system. It’s called E for eliminate and defend about your gut health, your, your liver health, reducing those toxins as much as possible and boosting your immune system because they’re all in the same place and they’re all super important to how long we live.

Ruth Soukup: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So I feel like there’s a lot we could keep talking about forever, but we are out of time. So why don’t you tell us where we can find you online, how we can get your book, tell us the name of the book. I don’t know if we said that and tell us all the things. 

Nicki Williams: There’s one book that I, for, if you’re in perimenopause, you want to get, it’s not you, it’s your hormones.

And that is the first book that I wrote when I was around mid forties. After all this craziness. So that will get you through your forties. And it’s all about your 54 hormones and how to balance them. And the latest book is called life after menopause. And this one is all about your embrace protocol and how to live, uh, how to embrace your next chapter with a healthy body and mind and spirit.

Ruth Soukup: I love it. I love it. And we will of course put the links to both of those in the show notes. So if you’re listening to this and you forget what they’re called, just go to the show notes and you’ll be able to find that Nikki. Thank you so much for being here today. This was amazing and so insightful, and I just really appreciate you sharing all your knowledge.

Thank you so much, Ruth. It’s been fun. All right, guys, that about does it for this episode. Remember that you can find the link to both of Nikki’s books in the show notes along with the link to her podcast if you want to listen to more. And if you know someone else who might benefit from everything we talked about today, please be sure to send it their way.

Then be sure to subscribe to the podcast to be noticed, notified of future episodes. And I will see you back here for another new episode very soon.