Navigating the Silent Storm: Tips to Ease the Issues of Menopause

When my guest Amita Sharma first experienced perimenopause symptoms a decade ago, she thought something was medically wrong with her. No one—not even her doctors—had ever mentioned this natural transition that affects every woman. This shared silence keeps countless women suffering alone, believing they're the only ones struggling with brain fog, anxiety, sleep issues, and sexual health changes.

What most women don't realize is that inadequate care during perimenopause can lead to serious long-term health consequences. Shocking research shows that 80% of American women over 60 develop chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive decline—conditions that proper perimenopause management might help prevent. While conventional medicine often offers only hormone replacement or symptom-masking medications, holistic approaches provide comprehensive solutions that address root causes.

The problem? These integrative solutions typically come with prohibitive price tags. That's why Amita co-founded Nourish Doc, a platform making holistic women's health accessible with options starting at just $5 monthly. During our conversation, Amita shares simple yet powerful daily practices any woman can implement: morning breathwork for stress management, gut-supporting herbal teas to start your day, and balanced nutrition with mindful protein and carbohydrate proportions.

We also dive into the rarely discussed topic of sexual health changes during menopause, exploring how pelvic floor specialists, breathing techniques, and even specialized practices like orgasmic meditation can help women maintain intimate wellness through hormonal transitions. Whether you're already navigating perimenopause or want to prepare for what's ahead, this episode offers practical wisdom and the reassurance that you don't have to travel this journey alone. 

You can find all the wonderful resources Amita discussed on the show at https://www.nourishdoc.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to No Shrinking Violets
• 3:45 Amita's Perimenopause Journey
• 9:30 Holistic Solutions vs Western Medicine
• 15:20 Accessible Wellness and Daily Habits
• 22:45 Sexual Health During Menopause
• 30:20 Nourish Doc's Affordable Wellness Platform

Transcript

Mary: 0:05

Welcome to No Shrinking Violence. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey, violets, welcome to the show.

Mary: 0:42

One thing I learned from my years working at a college is that people can hear something a dozen times, but until they know they need it, they often don't internalize the information. For example, every semester we talk to new students about all the support services they have available on campus, from counseling to academic success coaches to career center resume help. This information was given to them verbally as well as in print. It was often on every class syllabus. Yet so often when students were struggling academically or emotionally, they had no idea where to go to get help. It wasn't uncommon to hear, oh, I didn't know there were free counseling services, or also common. I never thought I would struggle with the stuff they talked to us about when I was a freshman. So it's human nature to manage the information we attend to. To pay attention only to what we feel is pertinent to our current situation Makes sense, right. It keeps us from feeling overwhelmed. Well, whether you're a woman who has already navigated the choppy waters of menopause, or you feel like you're not even in the boat yet, I have a feeling that the information my guest will share today will be valuable to everyone, whether it makes you say, oh, that's what's going on, or oh, I need to remember that's a thing when I get to perimenopause.

Mary: 2:01

My guest today is Amita Sharma. Like so many women, including myself, it was her personal struggles as a perimenopausal woman that put her on the path to where she is today. She recognized that our current medical landscape often neglects to address topics such as menopause, sexual health. Well. For women, that is stress and anxiety, and it can be difficult to find evidence-based, integrative solutions tailored to women's unique needs, at least in a holistic, truly impactful way. In fact, research on women's health issues is an amazingly small percentage of all research done, even today. Even today, thankfully, the knowledge about the issues women face in midlife is changing slowly, and it's people like Amita that are contributing to that change. She is the co-founder of Nourish Doc, a holistic wellness platform dedicated to empowering women through every stage of their hormonal transition, from PMS to perimenopause and beyond. She has pioneered a culturally sensitive, accessible and innovative self-care app designed to support women with evidence-based integrative wellness solutions tailored to their unique needs. Welcome to no Shrinking Violets, amita.

Amita: 3:18

Thank you. Thank you so Mary . I love the work that you're doing and I really appreciate bringing this topic out in the limelight and normalizing the discussion about everything like sexual health, anxiety, depression, all the things that we as women feel stigma, so I'm super thankful.

Mary: 3:38

Well, yes, thank you for that, and just looking at your website, you have so many rich options, so I can't wait to dig in a little bit more into what you have and what you offer. So could you start with maybe telling us how your personal experience shaped your wellness platform vision?

Amita: 3:56

Yeah, so I'm not a medical doctor or a holistic expert like you. I'm just a regular woman out there, you know, struggling it out, making a living, you know and certain you know. About a decade back, the perimenopause hit me and, honestly, I thought I was having medical issues. I had no clue the word perimenopause exists and, to my surprise, I interviewed over 3000 holistic experts and they had the same experience as me. It's not that I was not alone, because this particular phase of my life was never explained to me anywhere. Even when I visited my health specialist or physician's office, nobody mentioned that. So you can imagine my journey of over a decade suffering in silence and being almost like having a shame associated with what I'm going through, without really solving the puzzle. That was my journey in the perimenopause that I felt low self-esteem, anxiety, sexual health, loss of libido, my relationships, my career, my financial, my spiritual wellness, my mental health, my physical wellness everything got impacted. It was not just only hot flashes. That was my journey going through perimenopause.

Amita: 5:28

And I'll come to the nourish talk, but I just wanted to emphasize my journey a little bit because I think a lot of women can relate to this whole brain fog and sleep and all those issues that I'm talking about.

Mary: 5:40

Absolutely yes, yes, and you know I think it's changing. So you mentioned 10 years ago I think we're probably in about the same age range, but I think you know prior to now and we're getting better. I don't think women even talked about it. Like you mentioned the word shame and I think anytime women struggle they tend to think oh, it must just be me because everybody else seems to be okay. So it can be kind of lonely till you start to recognize and even a lot of the stories that women tell on my podcast. A lot of us have experienced the same thing. But until you actually have the opportunity to talk to other women, it can be really lonely and it can feel like my gosh, shouldn't I be doing better? Why am I the only one struggling?

Amita: 6:30

Yeah, you know so, in our generation both of our generation, right? Women rarely talked about this topic about 10 years back, to be honest with you, right, you know I would go in even women dinners or get together and nobody talked about it. Now it's different, absolutely. Things have changed completely a lot. And Oprah is talking, hal Berry is talking, you know, so many of these celebrities and influencers are actually bringing this topic out, but it can be very lonely and isolated and the problem is not only the loneliness.

Amita: 7:07

The problem is that lack of care during this phase of a woman's life can lead to chronic condition when she gets 55 or 60 years and above, and 80% of us women have that in United States. That's the data. So that is the scary part. Right, it's not okay. Now I'm done with my perimenopause. Okay, I'm in menopause, let's say, and I'm okay. No, you are not okay. And all that is leading, the lack of care that you have been doing as a woman, is going to lead you probably as diabetic as having the start of an osteoporosis, maybe having had some heart health issues, a weight gain, maybe onset of slow dementia All these things women have more than men and that's happening to senior, you know 60 plus year old women more 80%, like I said. You know 60 plus year old women more 80%, like I said.

Mary: 8:05

Very true, very true Because I don't think our allopathic or conventional medical community, they don't have the training and I'm not saying that in a blaming way. I think that, especially in this country, our system is set up to be linear. That diagnose, give medication, you get better. And the more we know and a lot of what we're recognizing now are things that other cultures hundreds of years ago already knew some things about herbs and just sort of how the body worked. But I think as you start to learn more about holistic and integrative solutions and that's a lot of what my work is you find out that all those things that you just mentioned, they're more prevalent and you know we blame hormones and it is because our hormones shift and everything in our body, our whole endocrine system has to adjust, but it's so connected to nutrition and lifestyle.

Amita: 9:10

Yes, and you know the thing that you talked about, the centuries old systems like Ayurveda, acupuncture. You know traditional Chinese medicine, all these systems that. The interesting thing is that I cannot comment on China. What happens in China? I think traditional Chinese medicine is practiced a lot, probably in that country. Ayurveda and some of the other systems the other countries have did also adopt more Western medicine because just for the sake of what America is doing might be right you know what I'm saying, like you know, so. So they also adopted a lifestyle, which they, they already had perfect herbs and all those things. Instead of doing that, they adopted a lifestyle that was a kind of, um, western lifestyle, just to, uh, the fear of you know, uh, formal, you know what, what you call it right right fear of missing out, yep yep and the fear of missing out, right, yeah, so so it's.

Amita: 10:07

It's interesting, all these cultures, they had a perfectly good diet and and herbs and all that thing. Instead of um embracing that, they incorporate. They most of the time went after the western lifestyle and now they're recognizing they, because of the rise of chronic conditions in some of the countries is astronomical it's diabetes, it's like unbelievable in some of these countries, right? So now it's coming to life like, oh my God, we just didn't incorporate what we already had and Western, now we invest Western part of the world in the United States, and Canada and UK are now focusing, beginning to focus more on the integrative, the functional medicine, the integrative part of it, because that is what can work, moving forward.

Mary: 10:56

Yes, absolutely. It's kind of like farming. Like if we go back and look at the old practices of farming, you know it was. It worked with the kind of how nature worked and the earth worked. And now we spray fields and because we want a quick fix, we think we just want to take a drug.

Mary: 11:14

And when we talk about functional medicine, integrative, holistic, all of those types of terms, it's typically not a quick fix because we're shifting our entire body ecosystem and I think it's important to recognize that it does take a lot of effort and I will go back to what is on your website. You could obviously have an approach that is multi-pronged because it is not linear. So, as we sort of go back to what we used to know, we are, first of all, in a faster world. So we have to change that mindset and we really have to look at what are we ingesting, because you know they're finding that sugar is really key to everything heart disease and Alzheimer's. They're calling Alzheimer's now type 3 diabetes. So there's so much that has to do with what we put into our bodies and I think starting to take that approach and look at those things is really important.

Amita: 12:20

Absolutely yes. And, like you said, you know, one of the things with the integrative holistic medicine is that it's not, unfortunately, one pill that will fix you. You know, like we have so many pills that are coming out with for weight gain and weight loss, I mean, so in holistic you have to work a little bit harder but it pays off. That's it pays off right, because you are incorporating an healthier lifestyle on a daily basis. So you're going to live a more healthy, fuller life as you get older, versus if you start taking, being on medications in your earlier, like 40s or 50s or whatever, then you're going to have all these side effects would accumulate, bubble up as you get older, still are coming to terms with it. Overall, people are learning about it, but still it's convenient to pop up. That is how the attitude you know, that's how the common person's framework is right, the mental framework.

Mary: 13:25

Yes, and the other thing that I think can be a challenge is that not everything works the same for every woman. So I could tell you okay, I take ashwagandha or, you know, I spray magnesium spray on my feet and those things help me sleep. I've had other women say they don't work for me or that didn't even change anything. So I think we also have to recognize that this idea of linear medicine, where one medication is going to solve the problem for everyone in our amazingly complex bodies, that isn't what happens.

Amita: 14:03

Absolutely right. Yes, and that's why one size doesn't fit all and menopause. But coming back to the perimenopause menopause topic, we know that how this is different as per the ethnicity of a woman, the age is different and as well as the symptoms are also different on a very higher level.

Amita: 14:25

And then, when you go into the nitty gritty detail, of course each woman is different, based on her emotional wellness, her body and all those attributes right. So we have to consider each human being as individual, not one pill that would fix all the issues, complicated issues, what a woman goes through through the perimenopause, menopause journey.

Mary: 14:51

Yeah, and I do want to get into more per Perry through post-menopause. But first I want to say I'm glad you brought up culture because I think that plays a big role, because our epigenetics plays into all of this, and I think we also have to recognize that a lot of the things that we're talking about when you're talking about integrative medicine or functional medicine sometimes there's a cost barrier and we have an issue obviously with poverty in this country, and so that divide between being able to access a holistic type foundation can be a challenge for some people.

Amita: 15:30

Exactly, and that's why one of the things when I talk to so many of holistic experts like yourself, you know they're doing an incredible job but it's cost prohibitive for majority of the population out there, you know, in this case, women. So that's what we have been working for the last two years to collaborate with experts and come up with a solution that's affordable to every woman in the world. So we'll get to that. But, yeah, yes, absolutely, that is a huge thing. So there we have a medical system where an average medical doctor only has seven minutes to kind of look, glance over you and give you some prescription and God knows what happens after that. Right, no follow-ups, nothing.

Amita: 16:20

And then on the other side, on the other spectrum, we have a functional medicine practitioner who will spend 45 minutes with you or one hour, but the cost of that of course they have to you know everybody has to survive in the world can run into $1,000, $1,000, which insurance doesn't cover. So in the in the age, a world where it's recession and tariffs and eggs going out of your reach every single day, an average American you cannot expect them to spend thousands of dollars going into even if they want to going into a holistic medicine doctor, and you know this has been validated by so many naturopathic doctors that I have interviewed. They said they had to shut down their practices because people couldn't afford to see them. They want to, but they can't afford it because insurance doesn't cover. Now they're doing only telemedicine. So how do you bring this whole bridge, this gap of the right care?

Mary: 17:18

Yeah, it's a really it's a really important issue. It's very frustrating. One of the things that I love about this show is that it does bring information for free to people. Now, let's be clear neither of us are medical professionals, so we need to be clear about that. But a lot of what we're talking about can be helped with lifestyle shifts. So one of the things I try to do is, for each show, give people something that they can start to apply to their lives pretty immediately. So, from your knowledge, how can women integrate holistic wellness into daily routines, like, let's say, three lifestyle habits that you think might be most impactful for women to start to build into their daily habits?

Amita: 18:08

So lifestyle habits. First of all is simple meditation. Like me time you know, five minutes of just it could be breath work. Actually, I personally like breath work more because then it helps cleanse your system. That's number one. It's very important. Number two is when you wake up in the morning, having some warm tea that's herbal tea cleanses your gut health. You know, I typically have turmeric, anti-inflammatory, ginger turmeric. So having that making sure your gut health is pretty good. And the third thing is incorporating a balanced meal and incorporating the right type of protein and carb proportions. These three things, if you pay attention as women are navigating the perimenopause, it's at least the beginning. I'm not saying that you're going to start feeling overnight better, but if you fix your diet with the right type of protein and you wake up in the morning, you take care of your gut health and you do some breath work to calm yourself stress level, because we are all so stressed out as a society, these three habits will at least start getting you into some kind of a next level of holistic lifestyle.

Mary: 19:26

Yeah, routine is really important, and I would add to that to really be aware of how you intake sugar, because it is everything and it actually pulls nutrients from our cells so it can be digested because it has no nutrition value. So if we consume too much sugar, we're actually putting our body in a state where it can't get enough nutrition because that sugar is pulling so much from our cells. So I could do a five-hour show on that, but I want to park that out there. I don't want people to feel pressure about oh, I can't have sugar. But I think awareness is the first place to start. If there's one thing that you can start to adjust and for me, I love sugar in my coffee, so I get coconut sugar and it has half the glycemic index. So that's a tiny little thing, but I think any of these little things you can do are gonna be helpful. So thank you for that. Good suggestions.

Mary: 20:27

Now I wanna shift a little bit into menopause, because I think for some of us and it was kind of the point I was trying to make in my intro it sneaks up on us because we're doing good, we're doing good and all of a sudden it might be mood swings or this brain fog that starts, or we have our first hot flash and it's like what is going on and these things we're talking about. Starting these things early can actually lessen the issues that we face in menopause. But one of the things that we don't talk about and I think affects every woman when all these hormones shift, our estrogen goes down to near zero. When we are fully through menopause, our progesterone is affected, which helps us adjust to stresses, but we don't talk a lot about the changes in our sexual desire or the impacts on sexual health. So can you talk about some of those things so we can normalize a little bit having this part of the conversation?

Amita: 21:31

Yeah, it's actually one of. We don't talk about this at all and this is one of the symptoms that women have loss of libido and it happens to men also as, like you said, hormonal shifts are going down and these hormones are very important for the sexual health part of our body. Or you know our life, or you know our life. So what can you do? I mean, you know there could be different things that each woman faces because of the I don't want to go too technical, but there could be pain, you know, in the intercourse when the vaginal wall is thinning, there could be dryness, you know all these issues can happen to women and they don't want to now engage in these physical relationships, you know, with their partner or their spouses, and that can add a lot of anxiety and stress. Now, that is one of the things that's very important for a couple and you could, if you don't talk about this openly with maybe you need a sexual therapist, as an example, to talk about it openly and what can you do to bring the blood flow to that part of your body, like maybe you need pelvic uh health or a sexual health therapist who can help you with some kind of an exercises to really invigorate that part of your um, you know, area, right, um and so or um.

Amita: 22:55

One of the doctors actually I was talking to MDs, in fact, she was talking about orgasmic meditation that has a lot of research behind this to help that part of the, you know, sexual health part of it. So the other part also a lot of people swear there's again research about is the breath work different type of breath work that can help you know with that part of the body. And then, of course, the pelvic health therapy from physical therapists. There are pelvic floor specialists now to strengthen your pelvic floor. So that kind of therapy also can help with you know, a lot of women. So there's a lot of things that you can do, but the reality is that it can go down and you have to be, you know, mindful that it can go down and what is it that you can do to help yourself? Right, and these are some of the options that I'm just talking about, which does have you know, evidence behind it.

Mary: 24:07

Mm, hmm, yeah, and I think it's another topic that can bring shame, because we have these societal ideas of what women are supposed to be and do and want to do and I think when that, when those things change and sometimes it changes also because it hurts, like it's not something that's always enjoyable as we get older, because when that estrogen changes, then things like lubrication change. You know all of those things, but you brought up some really good points, and one is pelvic floor. So we know that women should really continue to do strength-bearing exercises through. It's one of the most important things that we can do and especially if you've had children, the muscles in our pelvis can change and we don't often think about that.

Mary: 24:55

But I don't know what episode it was, but I did talk with a pelvic floor specialist. She's a physical therapist who specializes in pelvic floor and it's really important knowledge to know that there are things that can be done. And it wouldn't necessarily be something that your gynecologist would talk to you about, but they can do a referral to a pelvic specialist that can actually talk you through different exercises that you can do and you bring up breathing, and I hear that all the time from physical therapists that work with pelvic floor is we think that breathing is well. We do it even without thinking, so it can't really have that big of an impact. But it is so impactful when we use it intentionally, either for stress management or for things like relaxing, and it does play a role in pelvic health.

Amita: 25:51

Yes, there's a diaphragm breathing, particularly because we we do shallow breathing, right when we're breathing like a normal thing, right, and and the and the breathing from your tummy. The diaphragm breathing that's kind of when you take longer inhale and exhales, and one particularly breathing. It's called kapal bhaati and it's going like that, you know. So it starts cleaning up, clearing up your stomach, you know, from, from the deeper part of your body, and it helps a lot to to cleanse the toxins from, believe it or not, and and so so there are a lot of different breathing techniques that that women should learn and, and you know, I just very quickly told you about Kapalbhati and there are a lot of other alternate. I'm sure you know about the alternate nostril breathing and so many different breathings can help our parasympathetic system, because stress is also related with our pelvic floor. We are all in one right, our body is all one, so different breathing techniques can has a lot of evidence, research behind it as well.

Mary: 27:00

Yes, yeah, and I actually have a four week sleep course. That it's an online course but there's group coaching with it and you know it focuses on sleep for women in menopause. But we, if we make the changes that we are talking about, you actually just sleep better often, and I think we make. I mean, that's another issue we didn't really get into, but sometimes when you hit peri to post-menopause, it wrecks your sleep and it can be because you have hot flashes or it can just be that we've accumulated life experiences and we have anxiety. But the things that we've just been talking about breathing and mindfulness and grounding and paying attention to your environment those sound so simple but they're built into. I know the program that I have and I know that you have so many options. You have program options and different things on your website, so can you share a little bit more about what you offer?

Amita: 28:06

Yeah, absolutely. So. We were talking earlier about the cost-prohibitive barriers, right, how it becomes very expensive, how it becomes very expensive. So, in order to have that issue, what we have designed is an app that is starting as a self-serve app based on a woman's concern. First of all, she can go into understanding what perimenopause or menopause is, but based on her concern, for example, sexual health, she can go through this whole entire program that has been with the experts. Of course that she can do self-care herself, changing her lifestyle, changing her diet, using hypnotherapy, using meditation, mindfulness, yoga, breathing All those things are embedded into the self-care program that we are pricing it at $5 or something a month, right.

Amita: 29:00

And then after that comes a program like yourself what you were talking about is that it is again online. Plus it has some kind of a group coaching. So that goes to the other tier, you know, the next price tier, so to speak, again in collaboration with the experts I want to take as an example. Then we have the ability for women to consult with someone like yourself or any other holistic experts who have been vetted by us, one-on-one. So what we are trying to do is provide a comprehensive solution, but starting price would be super affordable, like five bucks, and then going up as per the need of a woman that is, really personalizing it as per a woman's culture we have that as well and as per what she requires.

Mary: 30:07

Wow, that sounds fabulous and I love that you're taking into account cost, but also that women have that empowerment to kind of drive. They drive the car right, they go, they decide what they need and they work from there. That's really cool. So the website is nourish doc.

Mary: 30:27

I will put that in the show notes and just to quick review, some of the simple things that you can start with are thinking about what you're consuming, really monitoring your sugar, moving, doing that morning where you're grounding yourself, maybe having some ginger tea, turmeric tea, something to start your day. Set that routine and, again, really taking time each day to do deep breathing, not only when you feel stressed, because that's when it's hard to do, but I think if you're settling in for the night and maybe you do have trouble sleeping, start to take deep breaths and ground yourself and put your screens away an hour or two before you go to bed. There are so many things that you can do to start to really kind of connect with your body and there are so many wonderful podcasts and YouTube different channels that are free, where you can get a lot of information if cost is an issue for you in getting care. So thank you so much for being here today. Amita, it's been great to talk to you.

Amita: 31:41

Thank you so much, mary, for what you're doing and, yeah, look forward to connecting more and love the work, so thank you for having me Absolutely.

Mary: 31:50

Thank you, and I want to thank everyone for listening. One of the best things about this podcast to me is the listeners and the community that we're creating. So if you have someone in your life that you think would benefit from the information in this episode, I would love if you would forward it to them or leave a review so people can more easily find my show. And if you love listening, consider joining the Growing Garden of Violets and support the show using the heart button or the link at the bottom of the show notes, depending where you're streaming from. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are. Thank you.