The first encore guest on the Hotlflash inc podcast is the women's health ND Lara Briden, who is a calm, cool, collected and highly knowledgeable voice in the women’s health space. 

She is the author of two books, period repair manual and hormone repair manual, is  a sought after speaker and guest, has her own podcast and helps 171 thousand people on Instagram sort fact from fiction. 

She’s also a student of the endocrinologist, Dr Jerilynn Prior, who she mentions several times in the podcast, and a passionate advocate for shifting some of the focus during this transition onto progesterone from estrogen, which gets all the attention. 

We discuss why perimenopause might seem like chaos, but it really isn't, and why. And a portion of the podcast is dedicated to the evolutionary aspect, which Lara is passionate about because she's also an evolutionary biologist!

Highlights: 

• Why ‘the four phases of menopause’ is unhelpful

• Recap on our menstrual cycle 

• The real four phases – of perimenopause

• What menopause really means (and why it’s going to be okay there)

• How the “chaos” is temporary – and what’s causing it

• Why there are really just 9 symptoms of perimenopause 

• The one symptom of menopause that does linger

• Why do much of perimenopause is about other things, but is also about perimenopause

• Why everyone gets the history of menopause wrong – and why understanding it (and seeing it reflected in the animal kingdom) tells us so much about what it really is

• The one thing that makes it all worse

Where to find Lara:
Larabriden.com
The Lara Briden Podcast
IG: @larabriden
X: @larabriden