Hormones, Menopause and Sleep with Dr. Lisa Fillis [Sleep 09]
Hormones — they play a huge role in the body’s activities, though did you know that they play a huge role in sleep?
In today’s episode, we’re talking with Dr. Lisa Fillis, ND, and taking a look at the role hormones play in the body’s activities, especially sleep, as well as hormone disruption and menopause.
Dr. Kimber is joined by Dr. Lisa Fillis, a naturopathic doctor from Long Beach, CA. Dr. Fillis graduated from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2003 and brings almost 20 years of clinical practice to the conversation. Naturopathic medicine is about getting to the root cause of illness, and she's passionate about helping women heal from the inside out.
Dr. Kimber and Dr. Fillis discuss the ways in which hormones play a role in the body’s activities, especially sleep. Dr. Fillis dives deep into hormone disruption during menopause, steps to take to combat menopause, and steps to understand what is happening in your body.
Key moments include:
02:50 - The way in which sleep helps our body repair.
04:05 - How hormones affect almost every activity in the body?
06:15 - Possible reasons for disruptions in sleep.
10:36 - Suggestions on how to navigate hormone imbalances for both men and women.
18:31 - How to get help with sleep loss affected by menopause.
Keep in touch with Dr. Lisa Fillis, ND:
Website: http://www.restoration-health.com/
Please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for treatment by a healthcare or mental health professional. This content is created for education and entertainment purposes only.
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This transcript has been created using A.I. please excuse any missed words or incorrect grammar.
Dr. Kimber 0:00
Welcome to I thought I was over this I'm your host, Dr. Kimber, a licensed clinical psychologist, trauma healer and fellow life journeyer every episode we dive into the science of human being, and whether you find yourself feeling like you've just hit an iceberg and don't know where help is coming from, or you're ready to trade in your raft for something bigger, you aren't alone, grab what you need, get comfortable. And let's do this
if you've been listening for a while, you know we've been diving into sleep this season. Sleep is one of the key factors that help us achieve psychological thriving, medical thriving, and it allows us to have mental flexibility and adaptability. So it's hard to find your best self if you are chronically sleep deprived. Today, I have guest Dr. Lisa Fillis, and we are going to tackle hormones, menopause and sleep. But before I have Dr. Fillis introduce herself, I want to remind you, although we are both licensed professionals, we are not acting in the role of your medical or psychological professional. So please seek out your own medical advice. So do you have persistent symptoms that need attention? Dr. Filllis, welcome to the show. Please let us know a bit about you.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 1:28
Thank you. My name is Dr. Lisa Fillis. I am a naturopathic doctor here in Long Beach. I have been in practice almost 20 years now. And I specialize in women's health thyroid hormones, which of course encompasses sleep, but big hormone stuff.
Dr. Kimber 1:45
Fantastic. Well, can you share with us kind of your own personal experience around sleep,
Dr. Lisa Fillis 1:52
I have been very lucky in my life to have almost always had good sleep. Nice, I can fall asleep. Usually within five minutes. Most people in my life are jealous. I sleep for the most part through the night and wake up relatively early and rested.
Dr. Kimber 2:10
Wow, what a gift.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 2:13
That's changing. Of course now I'm trying to go through menopause. And we'll get to that. But historically, I haven't been very, quote unquote lucky with this.
Dr. Kimber 2:20
And any times in your life where that wasn't the case.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 2:26
No, I was thinking back. You know, of course, in attendance a stressor, you might I might have sleep for a day or two. But for the most part again, I feel like I've been very lucky. That's one of my survival instincts, I think for myself is that I'm able to sleep well. So I feel very blessed. Yeah,
Dr. Kimber 2:43
great. Well, what is your favorite thing medically about sleep?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 2:50
Here's what I my schpeel that I tell patients when we're dealing with sleep. Sleep is when your body heals, right? So your brain, while your brain never, of course, turns off, but our impression of our brain turns up when lay quietly for hopefully eight hours. And that's when the whole body kind of takes over and starts to repair itself. The liver is really active in detoxing. The gut is acting as active as moving. The brain is active not on the cognitive side. But more on making sure everything is working well. And this is really what we have our chance to heal. So if you're not getting a good six to eight hours, really don't not allow your body to heal as well as it could.
Dr. Kimber 3:27
I love that healing is such a great benefit of sleep.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 3:33
Yes. An important part. Yes.
Dr. Kimber 3:35
One that I in my younger self. I just felt like I did not need Yes. Get away with anything. totally right. I was like Who needs sleep? I'm a rock star.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 3:51
Rock star energy.
Dr. Kimber 3:55
That's true. I forgot about that. Let's dive into things all around hormones. Okay, what are they? What do they do to our bodies?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 4:05
So most of us feel like think about hormones, just from a sex perspective, right? Estrogen hormones that affects our periods. For men, we think that testosterone and libido but of course, there's thyroid is actually a hormone so that plays into this. And cortisone, cortisol, which is the stress hormone plays into this even technically, cholesterol and vitamin D are in that hormone pathway as well. Oh, wow. Um, what we're talking about when we're talking about women and their periods or lack of periods, estrogen and progesterone, the main things we're talking about. So those both, of course, regulate your cycle, but almost every cell in your body has a receptor on it for hormones. So it really affects practically any and every activity, right? Those receptors on your heart has receptors in your brain and receptors in your gut receptors in your bones. So really, your hormones really affect practically every part of you Which is why menopause can be so difficult, because everything is just gone to pieces. We have to look at all those things, not just your hormones, the female hormones, but your stress hormones, right, what's going on with stress and your thyroid hormones?
Dr. Kimber 5:18
Wow, that's a great point. I love that all things can be impacted. All things are impacted by hormones,
Dr. Lisa Fillis 5:25
one of the things and not to jump too far ahead. But sleep is one of the most challenging things that I encounter, actually, when someone comes in, and sleep issues are their main issue is such a challenge. Because there's so many things that play a role, right? You've got your neurotransmitters, we've got your thyroid, potentially, we've got your hormones, we've got your stress. And they all do this little delicate dance together. And so trying to figure out what that piece is for each individual can be very challenging. The answers there, we just have to dig.
Dr. Kimber 5:57
Yeah. So what is your part of? Excuse me, let me rephrase that. What is part of your process in kind of creating a decision making tree of what is impacting hormonally the sleep?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 6:14
Right? Well, here, what I will tell naturopathic medicine a little bit more is that we tend to spend more time with people than traditional doctors, right? We won't be here for an hour as we're talking about all these things. So getting a really good history is really important, because maybe the sleep started five years ago when you had a traumatic event, or maybe distinct issues started when you went through menopause. Or maybe you have sleep issues since you were a kid, right? So those kinds of things will help direct us, oh, if this is a traumatic event, it's we look at your stress hormones, or if this has been going on, since you were a kid, maybe we look at your neurotransmitters. So give it a really good history. And see when did this start? What was happening beforehand, might give us some more clues about which direction to go.
Dr. Kimber 6:55
Wow. And so if I am somebody who is trying to put the pieces together, I might myself kind of go through a history of when sleep was good. When it was impacted to give clues of what direction I might need to
Dr. Lisa Fillis 7:11
go. Definitely. And if so I primarily see women, I see men too. But men don't like to go to a doctor. So I see mostly, sometimes our sleep is bad. When right before we have a period. Right. So maybe there is a hormonal piece. But maybe it's just a hormonal changes are making it worse. So that's where the nuance comes in. But yes, I definitely agree with looking back at when was sleep good? And when was it now isn't? And is there somebody that started?
Dr. Kimber 7:40
I like that we did an episode where we talked about kind of charting, just to get a sense, and I never even thought of charting the cycle around how good your sleep is. Yeah, yeah, of that idea.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 7:53
Well, and again, there's I mean, even we're not I know where he talked about hormones, but there's so many other factors too. So I can self admit that I have an alcoholic beverage every now and then my seat is off, right? So even those little things, and maybe I'm drinking too much alcohol, maybe I've got too much stress, maybe I've got an infection, right. I don't want to get into too many weeds. But there's so many things to talk about with sleep.
Dr. Kimber 8:15
So let's talk about menopause and sleep. What is up with that?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 8:24
Well, you know, when you have your cycle, your estrogen peaks, and then it drops and your progesterone comes up into these fluctuations in the waves of hormones. And that's normal, right. And we might have a stick issue here and there during that time. But when we go through menopause, they both kind of drop off, and your body's starving a little bit for hormones. So wherever you started having some hot flashes that wake us up in the middle of the night, that can certainly be a menopausal complaint and asleep. But progesterone really promotes GABA in the brain. So as that progesterone drops off, then your brain starving for GABA, but certainly there's a relationship in there that maybe your body needs more GABA that the progesterone was helping to promote. So it could be more literally a neurotransmitter issue that the hormone was playing a role in. And of course, come back to the stress aspect. When we go through menopause, our adrenals the little glands on top of our kidneys. They produce cortisol, but when we go through menopause, they start to produce what little bit of estrogen and progesterone that we need. So if we've had a lot of stress, that a few years before menopause, then our adrenals are really tired and they can't give out that little bit of estrogen progesterone that we need. So again, it might be that combination of stress and hormones and women neurotransmitter Yeah, I think all three of those are at play when you go through menopause.
Dr. Kimber 9:41
What do you do if your adrenals if you know you've gone through a you know stress, lots of stress before menopause as if we've gone through a pandemic. What do you what are some adrenal boosters that you could offer? There's
Dr. Lisa Fillis 9:58
some great herbs what we call adaptive gins, right. So they helped your body adapt to stress. And they helped to nourish the adrenals. So Siberian Ginseng, ashwagandha, holy basil, those are some great herbs that are very safe for most people. And they just gotta help and nourish the adrenals and have to give some balance in
Dr. Kimber 10:15
there. Is there a time that you take those during the day? Or does it really matter?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 10:19
Surely I use them at night because they tend to be relaxing. So we want to already be relaxed as we're going to bed typically at night that can be helpful. Not everybody, but for the most part that's helpful at that time.
Dr. Kimber 10:29
And do you have any tips for navigating menopause?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 10:36
If you're open to bioidentical hormones, they can certainly be helpful. But there's also if you don't, there's also some really good herbs that can also help to bring some balance in your hormones. have been learning good sleep hygiene. And notice what you've talked about in previous lectures are, but saying, okay, even though maybe I'm not tired until 11, I'm going to get in bed at night. You know, putting giving yourself some good routines can be helpful. Try not to drink alcohol a few hours before bed. You know, we have this idea, oh, if I drink, it makes me tired. The problem is it stirs up your liver. So two o'clock in the morning, you wake up, so it's actually worse for you. Hard Way. Eating, eating healthy generally, you know, not having too much processed food, not having too much sugar, that can actually be helpful. Looking at your stress, getting good exercise. I mean, everything that we know to be healthy is even more important when you go through menopause. Because the whole hormonal pathways have gotten thrown
Kimber Del Valle 11:34
out of whack Good. Well, do men go through something similar as smooth?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 11:40
Yes, they call it we call it andropause because they have androgens where we as you know, our menses, and it's not as dramatic. I think for men, when they go through this time of life, they tend to put on more belly weight, and they kind of lose some testosterone, and there may be more tired. I don't think the testosterone plays as big a role in sleep as say estrogen and progesterone. So I again, I don't see as many men, but in theory, they would have certain have the same issues, right. And they have just as much stress as we do. So you know, when you're starting to hit your 50s, work, life, babies, relationships, they all are going a little crazy. So
Unknown Speaker 12:19
yeah, yeah,
Dr. Lisa Fillis 12:21
I think they do, too.
Kimber Del Valle 12:22
That makes sense. And we've talked a little bit about the stress busters. Are there any favorites that you have? I know you've just mentioned, you know, eating well. Minimizing alcohol exercise. Is there anything else that you love to recommend with the women that you see?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 12:47
Assuming No, nobody's perfect, of course. And I tell that to my all my patients, no one's expecting you to be perfect, let's just do better than we could have been. But let's say you eating pretty well. You're getting your exercise, you're trying to be good with your sugar and your alcohol. We might consider doing some oral progesterone, and that would be something you would get from from your doctor. Oral progesterone seems to be a little bit more effective at promoting sleep, then the topical progesterone that we do. The I think the adrenal support is probably pretty important that those cortisol reducers I think that's probably one of my favorites between progesterone and adrenals. I think those are the two big ones. And of course, maybe we've already tried that. And then we start to look again, neurotransmitters, and we might do something like theanine, theanine is an amino acid that we pull out the green tea, helps to balance it, kind of like an herbal Xanax, for lack of a better word, it's not addictive the same way as Xanax is, but what it is, is just going to calms the mind a little bit. So if you if you can't turn your mind off, because life is just going at you, you just kind of have to chill you out. It gets you ready for sleep. So that might be another tool. You know, maybe for someone, they need all three of that to really get good sleep. But gaming is one of my favorites for anxiety. And again, you just can't turn your mind off because you're thinking too much about your day, or 2am. And you're thinking, oh my gosh, what are we going to do day? theanine is a great tool. It's just again, some of you can get over the counter at Whole Foods or sprouts or any health food store.
Kimber Del Valle 14:15
And it sounds like you can get it in green tea. Is that Is that right? And the problem
Dr. Lisa Fillis 14:19
is that it has caffeine, right. So there's I think the story is there's actually more green and more caffeine in green tea than there's coffee. But because of the theanine, you don't feel the effects of it. So it's a natural balance in there. So you drink a lot of green tea, but you then take the risk of having too much caffeine.
Kimber Del Valle 14:38
Got it. So your recommendation is that you really try to find it in supplement form or vice versa, the
Dr. Lisa Fillis 14:44
more effective I mean, yes, green tea is great for so many things. If you like it, that's a great tool that we look at the Chinese population. They drink green tea all night all day long, and they have great health for the most part. So this grid, but not at nighttime.
Kimber Del Valle 14:57
Got it. I was so glad I was gonna do Take that nugget and run with it and I would have been wide awake.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 15:06
If I may give you my story around menopause, yes, I would love that it was June of 2022. Of course, we've all been through the pandemic. And we all put on, you know, a good 10 pounds that first year. And then I personally went through divorce last year, so I put on another 10 pounds, so 20 pounds of extra weight. And then I go through menopause, and I'm just waking up every night with hot sweats and dying and, and so I tried a few things, quite a few things. And what ended up working for me is losing 10 pounds, I lost 10 pounds, just being aggressive, and just I'm gonna do this and knock on wood, I haven't had hot
Kimber Del Valle 15:42
flashes sets. So for me, my goodness. And
Dr. Lisa Fillis 15:45
given the extra toxicity extra weight off me. I'm not where I want to be ready to get another 10 pounds or so. But that made all the difference for me. So that's, you know, again, there's so many layers of this that we have to look at. But that was a big one for me.
Kimber Del Valle 15:57
Yeah. And what were your favorite weight loss tips? I know, it's all dependent on like personality, or that were? Are there some that you're like, Oh, this is this, this helps you be consistent and reliable for showing up for yourself?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 16:14
Um, I think so this is a shortcut, if you will. And I can admit to it, there's something called the HCG diet. It's a very aggressive three week diet where it's low, it's a low calorie, really restricted diet, and you lose weight really quickly. So that's the new amount, of course, but it's sports kind of jumpstart you and then move into a better cycle. So I did that for three weeks, lost that 10 pounds, and then come back to a more healthy life. Right, get back to exercise again and work on you know, work on my stress the way that everybody else is supposed to do, as they say now that they do.
Kimber Del Valle 16:50
I love it. We're all human, right? We're all human, even the helpers are human.
I love that story. We'll get and congratulations on really finding something that could help. Well, is there anything that you feel like you would love our listeners to know about overall health? It can be sleep related hormones, menopause?
Dr. Lisa Fillis 17:14
I think for me, the biggest thing is don't give up. I mean, if you can't sleep, you can't see me you can't get away from it. I realized what a lot of us go well, I tried two things. And that didn't work. So I guess we'll go take sleeping pills. Okay, and that still might be a good tool for some people. But the sleeping pills don't really fix the underlying issue. Right? So if this is a hormonal issue that can be fixed. Or if you really need to deal with your stress differently. I say just don't give up because the answer is there. We just have to figure out what it is. So give yourself time to pursue other options, even things that may seem a little bit more eclectic, like maybe acupuncture or biofeedback or even Reiki mean, there's some physical modalities that can be very helpful massage, right, that can help. So don't give up. Don't give up because the answer is out there somewhere.
Kimber Del Valle 18:01
Any suggestions of where to start? If somebody feels like their sleep routine will actually not sleep routine, but like ability to fall asleep? It doesn't seem to be like stress related. They have a hunch that there might be something going on inside any tips of maybe even where to start. If we're
Dr. Lisa Fillis 18:21
talking menopause, right? We're talking to menopause or just in general, okay, menopause,
Kimber Del Valle 18:25
menopause. Yeah, let's let's talk menopause, okay.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 18:29
First step might be to go to your doctor and say, Hey, can you run some blood work on me, that might be something, but you haven't had a period in a while, you know, four to six to more months, we know your hormones are going to be low. So testing them doesn't really tell us anything. But most if we're going to go with something like a bioidentical hormone, you can't get those really over the counter. So going to your doctor or your any of your health care practitioners and say, Can we try some hormones? Right? That would be a good start for even so there's a company that does neurotransmitter testing, it's a urine test. I think you can even get it on Amazon that might if you feel like well, maybe it's not really hormonal. Because I went to menopause three years ago, maybe it's not. But that might be another option is to look at a neurotransmitter test. And that will tell you, you know, is your serotonin, your GABA too low, and so you can't calm down. That's something that's kind of not related to hormones. But if we're kind of moving around each each obstacle here,
Kimber Del Valle 19:22
I will include those in the show notes so that people can have access to that.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 19:29
I can't think of the name of the company, but I'm pretty sure Amazon has those test kits that you can just order. Okay. Do you think running, you know, going to a medical professional to say hey, can we at least try some hormones? Or let's say you're not even interested in hormones. You just wanted the herbs? Obviously, Dr. Google is very helpful. The staff at let's say something like Whole Foods or sprouts are pretty knowledgeable. So you can say, Hey, can you help me find a women's formula to help kind of bring some balance in here?
Kimber Del Valle 19:57
I love that idea. Do you have a any supplement suggestions in terms of I know not all supplements are created a like you have any guidelines that you use.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 20:09
Unfortunately in this in our world of supplements, the more you spend the more quality it is, which is terrible. But that's kind of a true so if you were to go to Trader Joe's right great place for food, I wouldn't probably recommend their supplements because they're just kind of same with a drugstore CVS, Walgreens, probably not good quality supplements, you have to kind of spend a bit more money but sprouts mothers, any particular health food store that sells supplements, usually it's going to be good quality as the average person may not know this, but if the company is devoted strictly to herbs, they're probably a better company than one who does kind of everything. Ah, by somebody guy at ga i a very good company, herb farm. If you'd like liquids, the little liquid tinctures are from his very good, eclectic, very good company. So if you're going to a local store, those are laurelville there. You know, Amazon has a lot of stuff, but it's so hard that they give you 100 options, and it's hard to pick which one's a good one. So if you go into Amazon way, kind of look at how much you're spending, expect to spend 20 to $40 on a good quality
Kimber Del Valle 21:15
product. And I'm not sure you know, I know here in Long Beach, we have great health food places your we are very lucky because I like what you're seeing in terms of they kind of do some of the pre screening for us.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 21:29
Yeah. Well, the other thing I was thinking as you say that compounding pharmacies here, also use your good resources. Many of them either sell some supplements at their local store, but they also know some of the good quality companies. So if you have a compounding pharmacy near you, they are a great resource as well.
Kimber Del Valle 21:46
Fantastic. A compounding pharmacy, I would have never thought
Dr. Lisa Fillis 21:50
no, no, I said you know what that means when I say that? I don't. Alright, so of course we all know CVS, Walgreens, right, the big drug stores that have the pharmacies, but a compounding pharmacy is kind of an old school where they'll actually make the stuff in the back for you. This is where we get our our bioidentical hormones. This is where we get off label things, if you will. So let's say you have to take thyroid medication, but you're really sensitive to the fillers in there. You may go to the compounding pharmacy say, This is what I need, but I don't want any fillers. So they'll take the actual medication and put it in something that hypoallergenic so you can take an easier thing off Papa Carrie, you know back from Yes, yeah. Yes.
Kimber Del Valle 22:28
I am so thrilled to know about this.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 22:32
It's a good, it's a good resource for all of us.
Kimber Del Valle 22:35
Yeah, it sounds like it. You and I were both in Southern California. And so what a gift we have in terms of access to so many things
Dr. Lisa Fillis 22:45
are very lucky here in Southern California. Plus the weather's not too bad either. That's very true.
Kimber Del Valle 22:50
Well, how can people get a hold of you? Yes.
Dr. Lisa Fillis 22:53
So I'm obviously here in Long Beach. I'm online. Of course, my website is www dot restoration, and then a hyphen and then health. So restoration dash health.com
Kimber Del Valle 23:04
will for sure. Have the show notes. Include all of your links and your information so people will know how to get a hold of you. Fantastic. Good. Great. Well, it's been such a joy to have you on. Thank you so much for sharing your writing. You're welcome. All right. Thank you. I'm so grateful that you're here. Remember to subscribe on your podcast platform. I want to remind you twice a month, I send out a moment of pause. It's my newsletter. Someone described it as a love letter to the soul. You can sign up at Dr. kimber.net. I want to remind you, you are a sacred bean and you are worth it. As Dr. Phyllis said don't give up. Keep fighting to find relief and ease in your life until next.