Episode 276: Your Hormones Are A Vital Sign
with Dr. Mariza Snyder
Your menstrual cycle really is a vital sign that is often ignored, and Dr. Mariza Snyder has learned from her own personal journey that hormonal imbalances are what cause stubborn weight gain, mood swings, poor sleep, and low energy, and she is here to offer solutions!
More about Dr. Mariza Snyder:
Dr. Mariza Snyder is a functional practitioner and the author of seven books: the bestselling The Smart Mom’s Guide to Essential Oils and The DASH Diet Cookbook. Dr. Mariza's newest book focuses on balancing hormones with the power of essential oils, it's called: The Essential Oils Hormone Solution.
For the past ten years, she has lectured at wellness centers, conferences, and corporations on hormone health, essential oils, nutrition, and detoxification. She has been featured on Dr. Oz, Fox News Health, MindBodyGreen and many publications. Dr. Mariza is also the host of the Essentially You Podcast, designed to empower women to become the CEO of their health.
Additional Information:
Show notes:
Check out Dr. Mariza's website for women's hormone tips, including recipes and remedies.
CytoDetox: total detoxification support where it matters most – at the cellular level.
HCF's Live it to Lead it event – Newport Beach – November 14-17, 2019
Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
If you’re watching this have heard me say this a lot that the inability to lose weight today has more to do with hormones than even what we’re eating. On this episode of Cell TV, you’re going to get some simple answers. You’re going to get the reason why that is as well. This guest I think brings some really simple answers even as simple as essential oils and how that affects our primitive brain. It can be a simple biohack to things like cravings, or even anxiety, and stress, and sleep. I think this is just a great episode to give you some of those really simple answers that we all need while we’re detoxing, while we’re waiting for our hormones to be better. We’re going to get some great answers. Stay tuned to this show for the hormone answer.
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith. Today, we are welcoming Dr. Mariza Snyder, who is a functional practitioner and the author of seven books. Her newest book focuses on balancing hormones with the power of essential oils. It’s called The Essential Oils Hormone Solution. She is here today to discuss ways to reset your hormones to lose weight naturally and boost energy. It’s such a great topic.
Dr. Mariza is the host of the Essentially You podcast designed to empower women to become the CEO of their health. You can check out her website at drmariza.com for women’s hormone tips, including recipes and remedies. Okay, I’m excited you’re here, so let’s welcome Dr. Mariza and of course, Dr. Pompa; welcome.
Dr. Snyder:
Thank you for having me, you guys. It’s so great to be here.
Dr. Pompa:
You and I were just on a panel together at Paleo f(x) about the topic of female hormones; packed room. We had so many great questions. You did a great job by the way.
Dr. Snyder:
So did you; being the only man on the panel, you did a phenomenal job.
Dr. Pompa:
It was funny because I was—we couldn’t find the room. A matter of fact, it was Ashley who was taking me around. We couldn’t find the room, so I was five minutes late for the beginning of the panel. My joke was when I found out that I was the only male on a topic of female hormones out of this whole panel of women, I decided I’m not going to do it. I can’t do it. Then Ashely convinced me to do it, and here I am late, which wasn’t the case. I was just walking around the building lost. It’s even worse than that because truth be told, if she didn’t find me and drag me up, I thought, oh, I have—I thought it was at 2:30.
Anyways, long story, but it was a great panel. You brought a lot of great insight; I thought some of the best insight as far as just usable information. When you have a panel like that and you have six people, you think you’re going to have a lot of disagreement; no, we really didn’t within the panel. I think there was a lot of agreement in the panel.
One of the things that came out is we had a room full of low-carb people and we had a room full of people with a lot of the same struggles. I would say that most people today are having a lot of these struggles, a lot with weight loss. Because I always say, look, weight loss today has less to do with your diet; it has more to do with your hormones than anything. The real reason why people struggle to lose weight, or gain weight, or whatever they want to do, it’s hormones. This is that topic, so you’re going to cover that today.
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, I am. It very much is. I know you and I both meet so many women who are doing all the things: cutting as many calories as possible, restricting a lot as possible, working as hard as possible; and yet, the weight just won’t go anywhere. We know that there’s a lot more to it. It’s not a calories in versus calories out idea or understanding. We know that’s not true today.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, if it were only so simple.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, wouldn’t it; if the body were that simple.
Dr. Pompa:
The media makes it seem that simple. Just we’re gluttons; you need to move your butt more. You’re lazy. You’re a glutton. You just plain old eat too much. If it were only so simple. It’s not that way. Most women watching this I would say they would say, I’m eating better than all of my friends and family and yet I’m stuck here. That is the sentiment.
Dr. Snyder:
Absolutely, or they do the same program that their husband does. He loses 15 pounds and she loses 2. It’s so off. I can attest to that. Alex and I, my husband and I will do the same thing. My gosh, I can take him for—I could drop 15 pounds on that man like that.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and men, we’re not going to just through you off to the side during this episode; we have hormone tips for you today, too. Yeah, but no, I loved a lot of the things that you had to say. I couldn’t wait to do this show.
Let’s start here because you wrote seven books. I think you were on Oz. I think you were on FOX. You’ve been out there, but what got you into this. Everyone has their story. I have a story. You become an expert by our battles that we go through from pain to purpose, so tell us.
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, well, my story started when I was a little girl. I was involved in some head trauma and I had chronic migraines for 15 years. In that 15 years, I was told by numerous doctors, neurologists, all different types of diagnostics that I was going to always have this chronic migraine pain and that my life was going to be punctuated with headaches and migraines. I was just going to have to figure out a way to deal with it with medication. Growing up in that paradigm in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, that is what I thought was true. I didn’t know anything different.
I became a biochemist because I wanted to go into medicine. When I was in the lab at 23, 24 years old, I meet a fellow scientist who told me that she thought she had a doctor who could cure my migraines. I thought if she wasn’t such a reputable scientist that she was crazy. Luckily, that office, that practice was on my way home from the lab every single day. I decided to give it a go because I couldn’t imagine my life consistently on pain meds for another many dozens of decades or several decades.
I went to this practice. It was a functional practice. This was in 2003, 2004. Three months later, I was migraine free. It completely blew my mind. It just changed everything that I believed about medicine, everything that I believed about the body. It just shifted the way that I wanted to be able to treat people and take care of people.
I’ll fast forward another several years; I’m 30 years old. I’ll be honest with you; as a woman, and as a woman growing up in my family, I was taught from a very young age that my worth was very much predicated on how much I did for other people. I was never allowed to put myself on that list. I remember gran-grandma always saying, you’re selfish if you do this; you’re selfish if you do this. You always need to put other people first. That is what I did. I was very productive.
Dr. Pompa:
What nationality are you? I have to ask that.
Dr. Snyder:
I’m Latina, so Mexican.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, see that’s an Italian thing, too. The women served and they did the best at it. Oh my gosh; it was good in some ways. It was good for us men.
Dr. Snyder:
Oh, for sure; you guys are winning. Yeah, my grandma’s house, the boys, they’re not in the kitchen still to this day. That’s just the way it is.
I basically, I burned myself right into the ground. I just worked myself into the ground. I was in practice about a year. I had a lot of women who were showing up with symptoms that I hadn’t really learned a lot about in school. They were having chronic fatigue. They were having mood swings, anxiousness, weight resistance, and weren’t sure what was happening. Labs weren’t showing up to show a lot of indicating markers.
At the same time that they were dealing with that, I was also in it. I remember one day finally waking up because it had just been building up and building up for several years. I literally just could not even get out of bed. I was in the throws of massive chronic fatigue.
At that point, I remember going to the doctor, being recommended birth control and Xanax for this. Knowing what I had learned at 23, knowing what I had learned in all of my education and focusing on functional medicine, I knew that those prescriptions were not the key. I have spent the last 10 years of my life devoting all of my efforts, and my time, and my research on women’s hormone health or women’s health care because I had felt so isolated and alone at that time 10 years ago without a real clear direction or answer. As I looked around at so many women, including my mom and my sister, a lot of us were in the same boat.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s unbelievable. Look, before we got on the air, this is this month’s Scientific American. If you look at the title, it is, “Inconceivable: The Science of Women’s Reproductive Health” has huge gaps. What we don’t know is hurting all of us. Unfortunately, I told you that the article frustrated me beyond belief; however, their point is well taken.
Dr. Snyder:
It’s true; we do have so many gaps in not even just women’s reproductive health, but women’s health care in general. Our health far beyond spans our reproductive health care—our reproductive function. There’s a lot of differences between men and women that we really haven’t been able to look at and dig into. So much has happened; so much has shifted even in the last 10 years because 10 years ago, we weren’t talking about hormones. People just didn’t know what was really going on. We definitely had birth control. We had hormone replacement, but there wasn’t an understanding. Women didn’t understand how their bodies worked. I still believe that a lot of women are not very clear on what is happening with their bodies.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s true. The article made that point I think very well. It also made the point that birth control can be this—well, the pill, for example, has helped so many women, etc. Then backhandedly, it talked about all the other problems that it may be causing.
Then it had a picture of an IUD. It really made it seem like IUDs were the greatest thing ever. By the way, that’s a blown up, huge IUD, but that is copper around there. They talked about why most women end up stopping it because of the symptoms. They also went onto talk about, hey, stop your periods at all costs because you’ll just simply feel better; anyways.
Dr. Snyder:
It’s been awful. Don’t even get me started on hormone birth control. The fact that we’re using it as a way of treating women’s hormone issues, it doesn’t treat any of our hormone issues. It doesn’t treat anything. We just throw birth control at women for all of these problems and we never—you know this is what you and I found everything on is the why: why is it that we’re struggling with our menstrual cycle? Why is it that we have a luteal defect? Why is it that perimenopause feels like such a train wreck for so many women and all we have to offer is birth control? It just completely masks the symptoms.
Dr. Pompa:
I think that’s part of the problem right there though. Because see, and the article did point this out, the answer is oh, take this birth control pill. Most often, in the beginning, people feel better. It might solve that temporary problem, but they’re never going upstream to the problem of why they had these issues in the first place. Then 10 years later, they end up with a new diagnosis. Nobody really puts it together that oh well, the problem was never actually looked at of what was actually throwing the hormones off balance.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, it just got worse. The problem was still happening behind the scenes. The inflammation was still happening. All of that was still going on. Now, we just fast forward 10 years later and we have some pretty bigger—we have much bigger problems.
Dr. Pompa:
What are some of the early symptoms of hormones being dysregulated?
Dr. Snyder:
That’s such a great question. A big thing that I see, I honestly almost 90% of the time, a big part of what I see is going to be stress is having a major play on how our hormones are functioning. I talked a lot about in that panel about perceived stress and trauma and being one of the root causes of disease. I felt like in today’s modern world with social media, more isolation than ever before, toxins, which again, another major root cause. Again, our body perceives toxins and we—and it’s stress. We man an assault against that as well. It’s still a stressor into the system. Stressors come in physical, chemical, emotional, or even perceived.
Dr. Pompa:
It doesn’t know the difference.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, and when we have an all-out attack, when we leverage cortisol or epinephrine and norepinephrine, most importantly, cortisol over long term, we know that we then begin to deregulate a lot of other hormones: our thyroid hormones, our reproductive hormones like progesterone, and estrogen, and DHEA, and then also our metabolic hormones. The thing about when we start to increase the amount of cortisol, we also know that we’re creating insulin resistance. We look at just even in a standpoint of rushing from one thing to the next, call it rushing people syndrome, rushing woman syndrome, superwoman syndrome, whatever you want to call it. That’s one of the biggest underlying pieces that we have a lot of chronic stress. Now, tie in things like hidden infections, tie in heavy metals and toxins, and then we’re also talking about another layer of inflammation that is throwing off those—that endocrine system, throwing off progesterone and estrogen, and also creating issues there. I find that it’s usually oftentimes a compounding effect of multiple root causes at once that’s leveraging hormonal imbalance.
What women begin to experience is their menstrual cycle, they have horrible PMS. Maybe their menstrual cycle is—it’s being disrupted; it’s significantly shorter. We’ll also see women dealing with hormonal weight resistance. They can’t seem to lose weight and they’re storing weight at visceral abdominal, around that visceral abdominal area. Brain fog, low energy, the inability to sleep at night. All of those things tend to be some of the biggest heavy hitters or the first red flags that I see for women.
Dr. Pompa:
Then 10 years later, 20 years later, then it’s endometriosis, PCOS. Then they get the diagnosis. What you just hit on right there is most of the women that I talk to, thinking fog, which all of those types of symptoms, and the weight. Let’s talk about that because people want to know about it. I know what people want. What is in your opinion the Number One hormone disruption that leads to the weight and I would even say the brain fog because those are the ones that drive people the most crazy?
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, I think it’s HPA axis deregulation. I think that’s exactly what’s going on when we are constantly triggering that perceived stress.
Dr. Pompa:
The HPA, we have new people, hypothalamus-pituitary which runs your thyroid and your adrenals. How that whole axis works together is basically run by the center of your brain. That’s what your referencing.
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, and the reason for that is at the end of the day, what I’ve discovered or we know to be true is every single cell, every fiber in your body is hardwired for one thing and one thing only. That’s survival Number One. It’s so interesting to me as new research is coming out; we know that the body can sense perceived stress. I talk about your spidey senses are tingling or you can smell fear. There’s so many receptor sites all over the body that are concomitantly in stranger danger mode making sure that our environment is safe, but where it’s really happening, where that master control center is going on is the limbic system.
We just have not developed well inside of our brain to realize that a lot of these modern-day stressors like running late for a meeting, or not being able to find the panel, or getting a text message from your best friend—I got a text message from my best friend yesterday in the middle of an interview. It said, “I need you to call me as soon as possible.” I don’t know why my phone was not on airplane mode. I did not need to see that message in the middle of that interview because the first thing, I literally when into a clutch the pearls moment where I was like, what is happening with my best friend? What does she need? What happened to her?
That’s was a major perceived stressor. I felt like my heart rate when up. I felt really alert. I was ready to fight something because I got this text message. I think about those types of compounding moments happen to people multiple times throughout the day. We have a biochemical process that gets the body ready for our sympathetic nervous system: fight or flight. I think constantly firing off that particular system in the body lends to a deregulation of so many other—the digestive system—
Dr. Pompa:
In that system, you have your—it’s cortisol. We know increased cortisol levels drive weight gain, drives—it does.
Dr. Snyder:
Sugar cravings. It drives us to not even be able to think right. What is it, we drop—our IQ drops by 50 points when we’re in a stressed state? Have you ever seen the videos where people are lost in the woods and they run right through a highway?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, but they have no clue.
Dr. Snyder:
Because they just couldn’t—they ran right by their rescue just whoop. We downregulate that prefrontal cortex. People don’t realize also is we completely sabotage our ability to have willpower. Women ask me all the time, I don’t understand why I’m having all these cravings? I don’t get it. Why am I not winning the stare down contest with that cupcake? When we have shut that part down, cortisol has a way have hi-jacking our willpower.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s one hormone.
Dr. Snyder:
That’s one hormone. There’s other ones involved.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. That is; that’s a major part of that system. Then the thyroid becomes involved because technically that’s really part of the system as well.
Dr. Snyder:
I think that the thyroid is just getting whipped: just go, go. Not that it’s a confession, but I have Hashimoto’s. I know for a fact that my stress did not help me in landing there. Thyroid, as well all know, the thyroid is the gas pedal of our metabolism. It’s managing how we burn calories.
As you can imagine, if we’re constantly working our thyroid because we’re always in that state of sympathetic dominance, or survival, or running from one thing to the next—I grew up with a mom who literally was running from one thing—that woman never stopped. She was just checking of hundreds of boxes. I just assumed that’s how I was supposed to operate. We know that if they thyroid becomes sluggish, whether it’s a hidden infection, it’s trauma, it’s stress, or it’s toxicity, we then start dealing with weight gain, fluid retention, a sluggish digestive system, constipation, and a slew of other issues.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and people don’t realize that low thyroid, the thyroid actually can affect your gut motility, meaning constipation. It affects your constipation. It affects brain fog. It affects so many of these symptoms we’re talking about. Thyroid and adrenals, this whole axis that you’re referring to is overly stressed physically, chemically, and emotionally is really the big issue.
Dr. Snyder:
Then we co-elevate insulin and that becomes a major problem. As we know, insulin ultimately becomes a fat storage hormone in insulin resistance or a block with those—our cells absorbing that extra glucose. We know that if it’s not able to do that, we then convert that glucose over to fat. Then that leads to weight gain; that leads to sugar addictions; that leads to cravings. Cortisol and insulin, they run in a pack as far as I’m concerned. If you’ve got one that’s firing, you’re constantly firing off cortisol, you’re definitely constantly—your insulin levels are having to constantly manage that moment because we’re needing to draw reserves for energy.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s very frustrating for you and I because what we see is now a world even in functional medicine, a world downstream trying to give everyone all these little solutions for all these little things. We just described a very complicated system in the body hormonally that is driven by stressors: physical, chemical, emotional. For me logically, the answer is okay, you have to deal with these stressors. There’s a time to hormone, hormones. We would both recognize that, but it’s not the solution. The solution is dealing upstream.
My life’s work is about this cellular detox and my component to this. Hold up your book because you give a lot of other solutions even beyond that and I want to discuss them. Essential oils you have been a big proponent of and how to use some essential oils. Way better solution than obviously just throwing hormones, gasoline on a fire.
Talk about some of the other solutions because I think we’ve got women to understand, here’s the problem. This is why you’re stressed. This is why you’re not adapting to stress, even normal stress. This is why you can’t lose weight. This is why you’re not sleeping, brain fog. What do I do about it? We know detox; my audience knows detox. However, talk about some other things here.
Dr. Snyder:
Absolutely, and it’s important. Detox is such a big part of this conversation and so is food. Food’s a major part of this conversation. One of the things I learned—I’ve done a lot of detoxes and I’ve studied detoxification. It’s one of my favorite areas to dive into.
When I was beginning to heal my body, I keep crescendoing back down. I’m an overachiever. I’d like to believe I’m an overachiever at healing, too. I think when you think you’re an overachiever at one thing, you should just be an overachiever at all of them. I keep crescendoing back down to Square One. I was like, what is going on? How can I not beat this?
I realized that the first step for me was changing my mode of operation. I hadn’t changed the way I thought. I hadn’t changed the way I was doing life and that was a big part of it, that core belief system, that core mode of operation. I learned very quickly that you can’t green juice or green smoothie your way out of chronic stress.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I wish it were so simple.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, I know. You can’t detox yourself out chronic stress either. It should be a combination. You can’t just mindset shift your way into healing. You’ve got to do the work. I realized that there was a combination there.
One of the things I—one of the most difficult conversations I’ve had with women, I was just having with this amazing woman named Diane the other. I have a full-on program, a hormone detox hormone program inside of the book. It’s mostly food driven because I believe in ease and grace. This woman Diane reached out to me. She was on Day Six of the program. The biggest thing that she had taken away—mind you she had broken up with sugar, and dairy, and grains, and inflammatory foods, and she did all that good work—
Dr. Pompa:
That’s a hard breakup.
Dr. Snyder:
It’s a major; oh my gosh. How many people are like, wait, you’re taking away my Chick-fil-A? Wait, what? You’ve been there. You know people just go crazy when they find out you’re about to take away their favorite foods.
That wasn’t her biggest issue. She was committed to that piece. She had a poignant moment where her husband was cleaning something in the house. She was sitting there reading actually that book, my book. She felt so much guilt that she was not cleaning because he was cleaning. She didn’t know how to let it go and there was that moment where she realized that was what was getting her in so much trouble.
She reached out to me and she’s like, not only is the program—I’ve got more energy. I’m sleeping better at night, but I finally realized that I deserve healing. I deserve self-care. I deserve to take a moment in my day even if someone else in my family is doing something around the house because she was like, that is what keeps getting me in trouble.
That was a big moment. I know that’s not the biochemical, but we know that the emotional piece and the mindset piece plays such a big role. When we don’t think that we deserve to be well, you’re setting yourself up for failure, unfortunately, because you don’t—you’re not putting in all those practices. You’re not taking that moment to really make sure that you’re taking care of you first.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, I agree. How does somebody watching this with hormone issues use essential oils to help this?
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, absolutely. I will say, I love meditation. I love breathing exercises, but I also know what it feels like to be overwhelmed. I also know what it feels like when it’s just one more thing on my plate and I just feel like I’m about to explode. I have too much going on. What I love about oils is they are literally stress disruptors. How I like to imagine, have you ever been on a merry-go-round, one of those in a little park that goes really fast if you spin it?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, oh yeah. You mean the one you self-spin and you—
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, you self-spin. You’re holding on as a little kid. Think of that merry-go-round as that moment of overwhelm. What oils do is they’re literally the mechanism that just has you jump off, that has you jump off the merry-go-round like that. Oils whether you like it or not, their chemical properties, very specific ones, not all of them do this, but like jasmine, lavender, roman chamomile, cedarwood, frankincense, the calming oils actually disrupt the stress response system. They can go into the limbic system because it’s a no-holds-bar communication.
Aroma, our sense of smell is the most powerful sense that we have because it’s directly connected to our survival. By breathing in an aroma, I’ve got a little—my stress be gone blend is right in this beautiful little bottle here. It’s just lavender and bergamot. I roll it over my palms. The chemical constituents in the blend, the monoterpenes, the laminin, the linalyl acetate, they are stress disruptors. Whether you like it or not, they—you can sabotage somebody with this blend. You could have it underneath the desk diffusing it, and there could be some grouchy person in your office who’s always stressed out, and you could literally reset their stress chemistry.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, let me bring the science to it. I’m the science guy. Because some people, that’s all they needed to hear. Then there’s probably the smarter people. Then there’s people like me who that have to go, okay, so why is this actually working?
It’s what you said earlier; the limbic system of the brain that we were describing, that whole system that comes out of it, all the hormonal system, that is the primitive brain. Smell is actually the most powerful component to that limbic system. If that system as you described is causing so much of our inability to adapt to the stresses and drive this sympathetic reaction and affect our hormones, then how can we biohack straight into this system? It is, in fact, smell by the way.
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, it is. We know that oils come into the body. They’re basically dozens or hundreds of these unique chemical organic compounds, some plants. What’s so beautiful about plants—we look at nutrition. We look at supplements. We look at herbs and apoptogenic herbs out there and homeopathies. We know that plants were always designed to heal our bodies.
The same thing with essential oils is that they really work with our own chemistry. Something like linalyl acetate we know binds to certain receptor sites. We know it binds to—it helps to regulate serotonin levels. It helps to bind to GABA. It has this really powerful way of just calming the mind and relaxing it.
I have really bad flight anxiety, which stinks because I’m on a plane a lot. I have oils on me at all times because I have a certain oil blend that will take me from 100 to 0 in less than [00:31:22] upon smelling it. I’m so grateful because there’s people all over that plane who are taking Xanax to get over their flight anxiety and here I’ve got my oils.
Dr. Pompa:
People want to know, what’s the blend; come on?
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, the blend is a combination of vetiver. Vetiver is high in sesquiterpenes, which is a powerful neuro-tonic and powerful sedative. If you want to shut your brain off at night, I call it the mental chatter be gone blend, or just eradicate mental chatter, it’s just lavender and vetiver in a diffuser, a diffuser over your bed.
If I want my husband—my husband’s a night owl. He stays up way late; I think like 2 or 3:00 last night. Let’s say there are nights where I’m like, you know what, you are going to bed. I will put a diffuser by him around 10:00 at night or 11 with that blend in it. He maybe makes it 30 minutes and he just knocks out. You can do this to your family all over the house.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, people are loving that tip. What are some of your other hormone combinations you like?
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, so the anxiety is vetiver. It’s a combination of vetiver, frankincense, lavender, and roman chamomile, and bergamot. That’s usually the five I usually have. Even if you just have vetiver, and lavender, and roman chamomile, those three oils oftentimes do the trick for anxiety.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Dr. Snyder:
How about cravings? I think cravings are a big one.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s huge.
Dr. Snyder:
A study out of the I want to say it was the Journal of Neurology by Dr. Alan Hirsch who was looking at appetite and craving suppressants and was looking at aromatherapy and discovered that peppermint, I think it was 85 to 90% of the time completely successfully got rid of cravings. Now, I know that cravings are an unmet need and so do you. It’s usually brain fog. It’s fatigue. It’s stress. It’s emotions. It’s boredom.
It’s never your liver saying, oh my gosh, I have to have that cupcake right now. Your liver is like, please don’t eat that. Please don’t make me have to work so hard. Cravings are something else. They strike whenever they do. It’s always important to know your trigger times: 3:00 in the afternoon, 10:00 pm at night when you’re watching Game of Thrones, whatever it is that you’re doing.
Peppermint, just taking a drop of peppermint on your palms, breathing it in will literally shut down that craving. It’ll buy you time. A craving lasts about three minutes total. You can do a lot of damage in three minutes.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, well, actually, that’s typically the damage time. If you can bypass that time, good for you; absolutely. Frankincense is one of my favorites. Why do I love frankincense so much? What does that benefit me?
Dr. Snyder:
Frankincense, research for Frankincense, not only is it great for anti-aging, so it’s a great cellular support oil. It’s a great detoxifying oil as well known to support [00:34:18] to detoxification inside of the liver. Also, frankincense, it’s great for mental alertness. Frankincense, rosemary, and peppermint is my go-to blend for brain fog. Those three oils not only help to oxygenate the brain, they help to—frankincense allows for proper connectivity.
Rosemary boosts acetylcholine levels and boosts alertness and working memory by up to 70%. Brain fog be gone, my blend, I have tens of thousands of people making that all over the world because it works so well. I actually have my brain fog be gone blend right here. That’s a good one.
I love the frankincense for meditation, for again, for focus and concentration. Then frankincense has been shown very well to reduce depression in people who are dealing with that. Those are some big ones. Then there’s a lot of really incredible research on frankincense for cellular apoptosis and also for cancer. We’re seeing more and more research there.
Dr. Pompa:
You have a cheat sheet that you are giving as a gift, right?
Dr. Snyder:
Yes, I do.
Dr. Pompa:
Because people are going, what? What did she say?
Dr. Snyder:
I know; it’s a lot. It’s a lot of goodies. That cheat sheet, I believe it’s my cravings cheat sheet. When I surveyed 50,000 women last year, I asked them what was the Number One health concern that was affecting their life. Brain fog, stress, fatigue, and weight resistance, those are the big ones. That cheat sheet are my best blends and how to use them for those big concerns: sleep, brain fog, stress, fatigue, and cravings.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, perfect. That will help people. That’s the goal here. Hold up your book again because I’m sure that people will want to get it. You talk about these things at length in your book.
Dr. Snyder:
All those things I mentioned, there’s a chapter for every one of those conditions. I think it’s really important too in the book, not only for women to have a solution to what’s going on but also to understand the mechanism. If they’re dealing with brain fog, what hormones are involved? What’s going on with the body when we’re dealing with brain fog? It’s a thyroid of possibility. I wanted women to feel very empowered and educated, so when they came to you and I or their doctors that they could ask those types of educated questions and hopefully get the answers that they’re looking for.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. People need some solutions today outside of it because I think people are so hormonally off. It’s going to take them a while to get to the point of detox or just even lifestyle changes. In the meantime, the question I always get is, what do I do in the meantime while I’m getting there? I think the tips you’re giving are in that meantime.
Dr. Snyder:
I think a lot of people, we were talking about this earlier, a lot of people—everyone’s at a different phase in their healing journey. One of the things that I love about oils because I was such a nutrition nerd, I was so just digging the biology, and I learned that I could get someone to use an oil before I could get someone to drink a green smoothie. I was like how do I get someone to really begin to understand this beautiful healing? How do I get someone to start down that path? I love essential oils because I think they’re like the gateway drug into wellness; part of it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, it’s true because people use it and they go, oh, that worked.
Dr. Snyder:
That worked. They’re like, oh my gosh, my headache’s gone. Oh my gosh, I can think more clearly. My brain fog is gone at least for the next couple hours. Oh my gosh, I just beat that craving. Having those types of tools, especially an emergency tool that you can grab, that you feel confident in using, it just opens the door for what’s possible.
Dr. Pompa:
Here we have teens today that are hormonally dysregulated. It didn’t happen to you until later.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, not until my 30’s.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. It’s a big deal. The question, this is one of the things that they asked in the article, is why are girls getting their periods so young?
Dr. Snyder:
You and I both know why.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, but they never—they didn’t give that reason in here. That’s unfortunate. They did admit to the fact that the earlier a girl gets her period, her cancer risk goes much—through the roof; basically, more hormone disruption.
Dr. Snyder:
That’s the reason why she got her period early. That hormone just means obviously we have hormone disruption really early in life because of toxicity, because of parabens, and thiolates, and makeup.
Dr. Pompa:
They did, fortunately, quote one scientist in here that alluded to the fact of some of the chemicals could be the cause, but it was such a “could be the cause” that you’ll just read right over it. Yeah, isn’t that the shame? The hormones being driven by commercial meats, the hormones in the meats, the plastics, the toxins, the pesticides, the list goes on.
Dr. Snyder:
By having those, all of it.
Dr. Pompa:
I think the importance is that it’s a problem.
Dr. Snyder:
It is a major problem.
Dr. Pompa:
The world recognizes it’s a problem. We know it’s increasing cancer rates and who’s to see what’s coming? My gosh.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, I’ll be honest with you; I don’t think I’ve met a woman who hasn’t had a hormone issue one way or the other. They may not know it, but it’s very—it’s quite obvious. It’s so rare to meet anyone who—and I’ve met with so many other good friends of mine, practitioners who’ve ran hundreds and thousands of labs and have yet to find a woman who isn’t struggling to some capacity. Living in this modern world, how do we manage it if we’re not really proactive every day?
Dr. Pompa:
I think the problem is that then you’re right on what you’re saying, but they go to their doctor and they run certain tests, typically bloodwork. Typically, when the symptoms start, the hormones are still in line, so their blood tests are normal. It takes another 10 years for them to be abnormal. Then when they become abnormal, then they land themselves on dangerous medications, more dangerous hormones that we’ll find out 10 years from now are actually causing cancer, but the doctor is telling you it’s safe now. You start the hormones and certain things get better for a period.
Dr. Snyder:
For a period of time.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m telling a story that’s all very common to most women. The problem is growing. The solutions are arguably getting worse because long-term, I think we’re creating more problems. This is a big deal. This is a really big deal. I think that we need more people bringing it to light. An article like this, [non-verbal].
Dr. Snyder:
That is; that article is shameful. It is an embarrassment to our profession. That’s how I feel about that. I’m not giving up this fight. I’m not going anywhere. The more and more of these conversations we can have—and one of the things I tell women too is to have these conversations with each other. Let’ start having more of these conversations and demanding something different so that we shift the way that we aren’t the mismanagement of women’s health care inside of this [00:42:11].
Dr. Pompa:
I think we need to have them with our teenagers because this is obviously where it’s starting. We have to educate them on I believe the causative problems. Again, they’re teenagers. They’re not going to start changing their makeup.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, do you remember the conversation that your dad had with you as a teenager?
Dr. Pompa:
I don’t think I had one.
Dr. Snyder:
You didn’t even have the conversation. I definitely as a Catholic Latina, there was no conversation. Any of that was the Devil’s work. I remember it when I got my period. No one talked about it; no one said anything. Here I am; I’m at the roller-skating rink. I’m in these little jean shorts. Not to throw my mom under the bus, but she just threw some pads into the bathroom and that was it.
Dr. Pompa:
Threw them in.
Dr. Snyder:
That’s because that’s how my grandma did it. I have a dear friend of mine who has a book and she talks about a call to arms to—not just for the girls but for the boys too, but definitely for the girl. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that our girls are educated about their menstrual health, their reproductive health? It’s every single one of our responsibilities.
Dr. Pompa:
It is. Here’s the thing. Again, I go back to the, okay, moms and dads, they’re not going to—your teenager’s just all of a sudden not going to change their makeup. That shouldn’t even be the goal. The goal is that—you and I, we didn’t even have a conversation. The goal is just to have the conversation.
Because what I’ve noticed, my teenagers are now in their 20s. They all have went back to the fact that we did talk to them about these things. Oh, they didn’t want to hear it, but now they go, gosh, I’m so glad. They’re all educated. My teenagers all make good—or my 20-somes, they all make good decisions now based on their diet, and their lifestyle choices, the deodorants that they use, all these things.
Dr. Snyder:
Dad, it worked.
Dr. Pompa:
Plant the seeds is what I’m saying, plant the seeds.
Dr. Snyder:
It’s so true. My husband’s mom was an energy healer. He grew up with essential oils. I had never heard of this. I grew up on Pop-Tarts and Tylenol. My husband had grown up that way. He definitely went to the waste side for a little bit, but it was the things that he was brought up with. He grew up on all the hippy-dippy, non-toxic everything, and broccoli sprouts, and all that.
It was really great when we started dating. All of it was just—so many women tell me their husbands are just not on the same train. They won’t do things. They’re not willing to partner up with them on this healing journey. I’m like, thank goodness my husband’s mom did the good work already.
Dr. Pompa:
It doesn’t even matter ladies; you just do it anyway because women control.
Dr. Snyder:
I tell them all the time, yes. Do it anyway.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah because they come along. They’ll come along. Just ignore them and just move on.
Dr. Snyder:
Just take care of you. For the first time ever, take care of you.
Dr. Pompa:
Take care of you and watch what happens. They’ll come along because men look for things that are real. If your life changes, they’ll see it and they’ll follow. Then they’ll start asking questions. Just live the life and watch what happens to your kids. Live it to Lead It, that’s the name of my seminars.
Dr. Snyder:
We have a responsibility. I believe that we have a legacy that we’re leaving to our kids and our families. Not even just a legacy to our kids, but I have a legacy to my sister, and my aunts, and my [00:46:06] that I want to leave for them. I live this lifestyle and I spend time with my family. My mom and my sister always tell me that my house is not the funhouse, but they know that this is—that I’m always educating, and healing, and working with them. That’s the legacy I want. I want that legacy for my family.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it will happen. My 22-year-old daughter, just she’s like, I just want to raise my kids just like did you did, Merily, my wife. It’s like, but she fought her when she was younger.
Dr. Snyder:
I bet.
Dr. Pompa:
She fought her, but now it’s like, I’m going to do the same thing.
Dr. Snyder:
She’s like Bath & Body Works spritzer.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m doing the same thing. She’s all about it now, so hang in there. That’s the message of hope if you have teenagers.
Dr. Snyder:
I love it.
Dr. Pompa:
Listen, if you don’t have the conversation, they’re going to end up thinking Gardasil’s the answer. They’re going to end up thinking that birth control pills are their answer. They’re going to do this, but if you plant the seeds and educate them, when they hear that message when the doctor says, take these, they’re going to go, hum; they’re going to question it.
Dr. Snyder:
They’re going to question it. When the doctor gives them birth control and Xanax, they’re going to question it and they’re not going to fulfill those scripts. They’re going to get a second opinion.
Dr. Pompa:
Alright, well, where can they get your book? Hold it up again.
Dr. Snyder:
All the places all over the world. Clearly, it’s always on sale on Amazon. Thank you, Amazon. It’s in bookstores everywhere. Again, if women want to know their hormones, they want non-toxic options, they want non-toxic solutions for their biggest hormone issues, this is—it’s such a great book to get started. Again, the big premise for me is ease and grace because I know that so often when we feel horrible or we feel like our bodies are sabotaging us, the last thing we want is a ton of more things to bring on. I tried my best to make it as easy as possible.
Dr. Pompa:
We appreciate that. Thank you for being on this show. Thank you for joining me on the panel.
Dr. Snyder:
Yeah, thank you.
Dr. Pompa:
I joined the panel. Like I said, I was the only man.
Dr. Snyder:
You were late to the panel.
Dr. Pompa:
Alright, Dr. Mariza, thank you again. We’ll have you on I’m sure again.
Dr. Snyder:
Thank you so much for having me.
Ashley:
That’s it for this week. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. This episode was brought to you by CytoDetox. Please check it out at buycytonow.com.
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