Gift of wellness: Honoring Women’s health this Mother’s Day
For this month’s health and wellness piece, I wanted to do something to honor Mother’s Day. So, I decided to write a piece on women’s health. What does it mean to be a woman? Is it a dream? An ideal? A fact? Whatever it is to you, it’s a unique and powerful position and one that should be tended to.
For me, being a woman starts with health. It’s important to learn about any and all healthcare options that are available to us. That rule especially applies to concerns related to women’s health.
Last month, I started down a new and exciting journey by enrolling in a training program to be certificated in herbalism. This has inspired me to take a naturopathic perspective in this article, along with some help from one of our very own locals: Christina Shadle, Larchmont resident and owner of Side Benefits Nutrition.
Shadle’s previous career at her PR job had her regularly sick, drained and worn out. Soon after, she decided to leave the corporate world and focus on her own health. The resources made available by biomedicine (colloquially referred to as “Western” medicine) were not what she was looking for. She wanted to heal her body from a root-cause perspective, rather than simply managing her symptoms.
She was introduced to a school called the Nutritional Therapy Association and followed this path to arrive where she is now: a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP) and Restorative Wellness Practitioner (RWP).
The first thing I asked Shadle was how she might tailor treatments and advice for different stages of a woman’s life. She explains, “The one thing I always look at is the gut. I’ve noticed that a lot of young girls get their wellness advice from TikTok or other social media platforms. They hear about ‘the cottage cheese diet’ and then think that’s how they should eat all of the time. I often see gut-related issues. I’ll have them track their food for a week. I can see exactly where a person might be able to easily improve their diet.
Then I move to digestion. Resting to digest is so important. It can be supportive for both digestion and for improving fertility. It means getting yourself into a parasympathetic state, which means getting more in tune with nature, more in tune with our bodies, more in tune with the lunar cycle.”
I also asked how she approaches hormonal balancing in her practice.
“After checking in with digestion, I look at blood sugar,” says Shadle. Blood glucose levels go up and down all day, but these changes shouldn’t be dramatic or out of control. Particularly for women who have PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder in women), because one of the main causes of this condition is insulin resistance. It is important to work on your blood sugar every day starting in the morning. If you’re eating sugar (or other simple carbohydrates such as bread) all day, that’s something you might want to change. Of course, it’s based on an individual basis, because if you’re a marathoner, you might need that kind of energy, but not if you work from home on your computer all day. Low carbohydrate eating (such as meats, leafy greens and avocados) can be an easy fix for someone dealing with stubborn weight, PCOS, or tending toward diabetes.”
I asked Shadle what advice she offers her clients with perimenopause and menopause. She stressed the importance again of a high-quality diet and shared some herbs she incorporates: “Rhodiola rosea, black cohosh, St. John’s wort and chaste tree assist in hot flashes, night sweats, low sex drive, decreased energy and musculoskeletal health. Phytoestrogens such as flaxseeds and red clover are also important as estrogen fluctuates and eventually declines.”
She spoke about how many women suffer from sleep issues during this time due to progesterone decline and suggests using minerals and amino acids like magnesium glycinate, taurine, herbs (chamomile, skullcap, passionflower) and bio-identical progesterone.
It’s a life adjustment to incorporate “stress reduction, carb-lowering diet and even weight lifting.” We can.
Looking at female health in a month to celebrate all women. Drawing by Priscilla Duggan.
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