Welcome to Pain Free Periods with Stasha Podcast

This transcript is done by my video editing software and I look it over during editing, but the audio is my focus when I’m editing. It’s just me, so please forgive any mistakes.

S1E2 Estrogen-Progesterone Balance for Pain-Free Periods

Stasha: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Pain-Free Periods with Stasha. I’m your host, Stasha the period coach, and your guide to understanding why your period hurts and what to do about it. So last week we talked about the four root causes of period pain. Hormonal imbalance, often estrogen dominance, chronic inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, stress and nervous system dysregulation.
So I promised you we’d take a deep dive into each one, and today we’re starting with the one I see most often in my clients and the ones that… most misunderstood, the estrogen-progesterone balance By the end of this episode, you’re gonna understand exactly what estrogen and progesterone do, why estrogen dominance is a bit of a misnomer, how to tell if your ratio is off, and most importantly, what you can actually do about it.
So let’s start with a metaphor I use with all my clients. Think of your menstrual [00:01:00] cycle like a dance. I have a degree in dance, so I know what I’m talking about here. Estrogen and progesterone are your two principal dancers, your two lead dancers. The estrogen growth, right? So estrogen is the growth hormone.
The growth dancer builds up your uterine lining, gives you energy, makes you feel social and vibrant. Progesterone, the calming dancer… Remember my Cheech and Chong hormone from last week? It’s the one that makes you feel chill and relaxed. So the calming dancer balances estrogen, prevents the lining from getting too thick, calms inflammation, helps you sleep.
In a healthy cycle, these two dancers move together in harmony. Estrogen rises in the first half of your cycle, that’s the follicular phase, building the lining. Then after ovulation, progesterone rises to balance it out and prepare the lining for a potential pregnancy. So you do get a [00:02:00] secondary little rise of estrogen in that luteal phase, so that’s after ovulation, and it’s not as high as when it’s in the follicular phase, but it is a little bit of a rise, and that’s normal in that luteal phase.
However, progesterone is supposed to be higher, and this is where we see the dance get disturbed. And this is where a lot of the online information gets it wrong, which I know, I’m online right now, so I get it. But you’ve probably heard the term estrogen dominance, and you might think that means you have too much estrogen, but that’s not always the case.
Sometimes estrogen dominance is actually a ratio problem, not a testing numbers problem. So if you were to say that you had high estrogen and normal progesterone, yes, you have too much estrogen relative to progesterone. Classic estrogen dominance Normal

Estrogen. Sorry, I said progesterone when I recorded this the first time, so I’m just popping back in. Normal [00:03:00] estrogen and low progesterone
Speaker: Is your estrogen is fine, but your progesterone is too low to balance it.
So your estrogen would be considered normal if you were testing, but because your progesterone is low, you’re going to feel the same way as if your progesterone was normal and your estrogen was high. So regardless of how the testing numbers would come back, how you feel would be very similar. It’s the same problem.
You don’t have the progesterone to balance that estrogen. So it does still feel like estrogen dominance even though the numbers would be different. Does that make sense?
So high estrogen and low progesterone is the worst of both worlds, right? High estrogen and just rock bottom at progesterone is also estrogen dominance. So again, in that case, you would have two things that are testing out of balance. And again, you’re ending up [00:04:00] in that same place, but worse, right? So Those symptoms would be even worse if you have high progesterone and low…
Or sorry, high… So everything, all- So all of those symptoms would be worse if you have high progesterone
The worst of both worlds, which creates the worst symptoms. So here’s the key takeaway. Estrogen dominance doesn’t always mean you’re full of estrogen and that you need to reduce your estrogen. It could mean that you’re just not producing enough progesterone, and I absolutely do see that in clients.
So that’s good news because it gives you more levers to pull. When your ratio is off, your uterine lining could be thicker than it should be, and then when it’s time to shed that lining, your body has to produce more prostaglandins to contract hard enough to get it all out, Because prostaglandins is what helps your uterus contract to get that out. It’s also the same thing that runs to a cut to puff it up. It causes inflammation in order to protect your body from further damage. So prostaglandins are very important. If you cut yourself, that area around it puffs up so that there won’t be anything that gets into the cut to infect it, or at least to reduce [00:05:00] what can get into that cut and affect it, until the white blood cells and everyone else can move in and start doing the repair work.
So it’s an immediate protective shield through inflammation. So you need prostaglandins. They’re absolutely critical. You also couldn’t have your period and shed the lining at all if you didn’t have them, but if you get too many, more prostaglandins equals more pain. And it’s not just pain, it’s an imbalanced estrogen-progesterone ratio, which is also linked to heavy bleeding, large blood clots, PMS that feels like emotional whirlwinds, just mood swings everywhere, breast tenderness, bloating and water retention, fibroids and ovarian cysts.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to that have ovarian cysts that are thinking about having their ovaries removed when, in reality, it could be better for them in the long run to reduce their estrogen or get that progesterone back into [00:06:00] balance so they can keep their ovaries and their healthy cycles.
We need these hormones for not just our short-term, but also our long-term health. Endometriosis progression, so the more estrogen, the quicker the endometriosis grows, so it increases the progression. So when we talk about hormonal balance, we’re really talking about getting that estrogen to progesterone ratio into a healthy range, whether that means lowering estrogen, raising progesterone, or both I hope that makes sense.
That’s how I mean hormonal balance is getting these two to being into that, divine ratio. I want you to listen to these signs and symptoms and see if any of them feel familiar. Remember, it’s about the pattern, not just one random symptom. So if you see two or three of these showing up cycle after cycle, it’s really worth paying attention to.
So period symptoms, heavy periods, large clots, cramps that start before your period, longer cycles, so [00:07:00] definitely 35 days plus, but even into that 30 day plus, it’s something that I would certainly be looking into.
PMS symptoms, there’s over 200 symptoms, so if it’s coming and happening to you in those deep luteal, which is those few days before your period, it’s probably a PMS symptom. Severe PMS, which turns into PMDD when it gets to be really debilitating to your life. Irritability, anxiety, mood swings, depression, all of those mood changes absolutely go along with PMS.
If they get even worse, like anxiety, that you’re having anxiety attacks, or depression that you can’t get out of bed and you’re not going to work, that’s when we’re looking at PMDD. And then if it lifts when your period starts, that’s also a pretty good indication… When those mood symptoms lift when your period starts, that’s also a very good indication it’s PMS, it’s too much estrogen or maybe you’re moving into PMDD, which also [00:08:00] benefits from that hormonal balance of estrogen and progesterone being in the right ratio Breast tenderness, swelling, super classic sign of this ratio being out of balance.
Bloating, weight gain, especially in the hips, thighs, headaches or migraines, fatigue fibroids, cysts, endometriosis, irregular cycles. We… I mentioned those a little bit earlier. Fertility struggles, though a lot of times people find these things out while they’re struggling with fertility. Low libido, brain fog, hair thinning, cold hands and feet, those can also mean that the thyroid’s out of order, and that can happen when your ratio’s out of order because your body is compensating and your thyroid starts to get burnt out.
So you can end up putting yourself in a state of adrenal fatigue, thyroid burnout, these kinds of things from having this ratio be off for too long. So you can start to see it bleed into other parts of your life and your body. Something that most people don’t know is you can have [00:09:00] normal estrogen levels on a blood test and still have an unbalanced ratio.
Even doctors don’t realize this. Most of them don’t even know when to test for progesterone to get an accurate test if you’re doing blood work. So i- a lot of times my clients, before they go into the doctor, we talk about, okay, when should you test for this? When should you test for that?
It’s really important, and unfortunately a lot of doctors don’t actually know that. So tracking your symptoms is super important, and a lot of my clients don’t wanna test. They don’t have the excess money for tests, or their insurance won’t test for things outside of certain specific things.
We do a lot of symptom-based work, and I’m not prescribing medication, so that’s okay. We can actually do symptom-based work. If it works, you feel better. If it doesn’t work, then we do something else, right? So it’s certainly something that works for most people, and I always say PMS is the easiest thing to fix.
I can fix anybody’s [00:10:00] PMS. That’s not a problem. Fixing harder, more complex things like pain can take a few rounds of trial and error to find exactly what works and what doesn’t work for your particular body and the things that you need. So your body is gonna tell you far more than a single blood draw will.
In my last blood draw that I had about six months ago, I had perfect hormones. She was like, “You’re not in perimenopause.” And I said, “Okay. Well, I’ve only ovulated three times in the last year. My cycles have been 49 days, and they used to be 24 to 26.
And now they’re… They went through a year of going every two weeks, every six weeks, every two weeks, every six weeks, to now it’s just 49 days. 49 days. Oh, there was a 48 day. Obviously I’m in perimenopause”. Like, that’s not even subtle. Despite the fact that day at that moment my blood work was perfect So what do you actually do about this?
I’m gonna give you a framework that I use with [00:11:00] my clients, and this is the exact approach that helps women go from an imbalanced ratio to feeling like themselves again, dancing a beautiful dance. I want to remind you of something I mentioned in episode one, pain is like an onion. You don’t peel the whole thing at once.
You take one layer at a time. You might cry a little. And sometimes you have to set it down and come back to it. So I just want you to remember, it’s bit by bit, layer by layer, one level of pain removed. Sometimes you do need a breather. Sometimes you need to walk away.
Just stick with what you’re doing, and then come back to try the next thing. So it’s okay, and that’s true for balancing your hormones as well as just coping with pain. You don’t have to do everything today. In fact, it’s probably in… Most people cannot make that many changes at once and stick with them, and that is something that I need you to understand is pain management is going into remission, not cure.
You have to make lifestyle changes, and some things you can step back into a little bit, but you’re never gonna be able to [00:12:00] do again. Like, when I worked for the Obama campaign in 2008, I drank a lot. I was in my late 20s. I had been a bartender in New York City for, like, a decade. I was a professional drinker and I was in an incredible amount of pain, and not drinking didn’t make the pain worse or better. So it was like I rather not, pay attention to it than pay attention to it, right? So I definitely knew how to drink. I was fine. I worked and everything, but, I certainly was a professional drinker in my 20s. And when I came out to work on the Obama campaign, I was like, “Okay, let’s do it,” and I drank. We all drank. We were going door to door, knocking on people. We turned a red county blue for the first time ever. We were one of the top fundraising offices to help Obama get elected. I’m very proud of the work that I did.
That said, once I started figuring out that I could actually reduce my pain [00:13:00] through just my everyday life, food, that kind of thing, I don’t drink anymore. I occasionally have a glass of wine if I’m having a big meal. New Year’s Eve, I will have a glass of bubbly. Probably won’t make it to midnight, but I’ll have a glass of bubbly before I go to bed. So, you might be able to have some things, but you may not be able to have them in the excess that you did.
You just pick one layer, one action, start there, and that’s how real lasting change sticks. That’s how it ma- it happens. Here’s the framework. I’ve split it into two categories, lowering estrogen and raising progesterone, ’cause depending on your ratio, you might need to focus on one more than the other.
And I definitely would say start with raising progesterone
So here’s the framework. I’ve split it into two categories, lowering estrogen and raising progesterone, because depending on your ratio, you might need to focus on one more than the other. You may need to do both. So lowering estrogen if you need to clear excess, and this is something that everyone can try first, and if it makes a difference, then you know you’re on the right track.
So if you’re producing or holding onto too much estrogen, these steps are gonna help your body eliminate it. You need to support your liver. Your liver is what clears used estrogen [00:14:00] out, so you need to eat cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and I would consider a vitamin B, zinc, and magnesium glycinate supplement.
Support your gut.
Your gut bacteria help process estrogen. So eat fiber-rich foods like beans, lentils, oats, and berries. And another thing I like to do is refrigerate anything like potatoes, rice, anything starchy, because that helps build resistant starch in that food. And then when you eat it later, even if you reheat it, it’s still in there, which helps get into the deeper intestinal tract and really help that flora, fauna, biome flourish
Reduce your environmental estrogen, so avoiding plastics. If you can, switch to glass containers or stainless steel. If you have plastics in the house, like I still have plastics in the house, nothing but cold can go into them, and then you have to get the food out of it if you’re gonna reheat it.
So if [00:15:00] you’re putting away hot leftovers, they gotta go in glass or stainless steel, something that doesn’t have plastic on it. And if you wanna reheat food, you gotta reheat it in a bowl, ceramic, glass, something like that, right? Try and cut back on beauty products. All of those cosmetics and shampoos and all that stuff that you put onto your body is just a way for the patriarchy to make money off of making you feel bad about your body.
I’m not saying don’t have a luxury item. I have face masks that I do from time to time, that kinda thing. Lotion, sure, but try and get clean versions of it, not, like, scented and full of chemical versions. It’s honestly such a money saver when you get rid of a- so much of that junk that’s really just out there because that’s how they make money.
The beauty industry is the number one industry. It’s just sucking money out of women by making you feel bad. And I love to do makeup and have [00:16:00] events, but in the rest of the time, no. It’s just… Stop giving them money. Cut back on alcohol. Like I said, I didn’t notice a difference between my pain when I drank or I didn’t drink, but when I did it over the long term, it gave my liver a break, and then it was able to actually get rid of that excess estrogen.
So it takes time for that to really be noticeable, but it absolutely makes a huge difference. So give it a break. And if you have to, try and do things where in the second half of your cycle you’re not drinking, and if you’re gonna go do fun stuff, go do it in your follicular phase when you’re feeling outgoing and extroverted anyway.
So try and give your liver that break. Raising progesterone if you need to bring up the progesterone, which is certainly something i- that I see in people a lot. And we do see benefit in reducing the estrogen load even if the estrogen is normal [00:17:00] while we work on getting that progesterone up, just so that it have…
It’s a sense of immediate feeling better, which makes it easier to do the other things, right, that take a little bit more time. So these steps can help your body produce more progesterone, more of that nice cheech and chong action. you have to manage stress if you wanna make progesterone. Your progesterone is made from a master hormone, pregnenolone, and pregnenolone turns into 150 hormones in your body, including cortisol and including progesterone.
So we talked a little bit about this before. When you’re stressed, your body is gonna take that pregnenolone and make cortisol instead of making progesterone out of it. It’s gonna prioritize your stress. So progesterone is only produced after you ovulate, so you need to ovulate and you need to work on that stress I’m gonna do an entire episode on ovulation and progesterone because it’s just so freaking important after we get through some of these root [00:18:00] causes for pain.
If I can impress on you one thing, it’s that your ovulation is what you really should be tracking and paying attention to more than anything else. Because if you do not ovulate, you do not make progesterone. If you do not make progesterone, in the short term, hair, skin, nails all of these things, progesterone is your best friend.
So feeling good, feeling relaxed, feeling calm, feeling grounded, feeling stable, all of that is progesterone. And in the long term, it protects your heart health, which is the number one killer of women, your brain health, which 70 to 80% of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients are women, and your bone density.
Women suffer from higher rates of osteoporosis, earlier onset osteoporosis, all of these things, and those are progesterone’s long-term post-menopause. So you need as much progesterone now as you can possibly get if you wanna have a healthy, strong post-menopause half [00:19:00] of your life. It’s gonna hopefully be half of your life.
So if you’re not doing it now, like if you’re on hormonal birth control, then you will have problems later in life. There are things you can do to mitigate it, but it causes a lot of problems. So you absolutely need to ovulate so that you can see how you’re doing and making… So then you’re going, “Okay, I am producing progesterone.”
You can confirm your ovulation, and then focus on making sure that you’re making enough progesterone after you ovulate. Vitamin B6, vitamin C, zinc, they all support progesterone production. And zinc supports follicular health, and it can take 100 days of taking zinc before you see an improvement in the follicular health.
So if you aren’t ovulating consistently or every other month or any kind of inconsistency with ovulation, you absolutely wanna try getting some more zinc in. And Vitex, also [00:20:00] known as chasteberry, can support progesterone. Always talk to your doctor before you add in minerals, vitamins, anything.
It’s just always best practice to run them by, a doctor and especially if you take supplements because they all have a contraindication of some sort. When I did the supplements class for my perimenopause coaching students, every single supplement I talked about I was like, “I need to just start with a disclaimer that all of these have a contraindication.”
There’s something. Somebody who has kidney damage, right there you have a lot of issues. Autoimmune disorders, there’s a lot of contraindications for autoimmune disorders. So Run it by your doctor. Just be safe. But chasteberry helps you produce progesterone.
It was called chasteberry because it reduced libido in men. But for us, it can actually increase it. It can reduce it if you’re taking it too long, and it does need to be pulsed to get the best out of it. I’ve taken it on and off for a long time, and I always see [00:21:00] help and support when I take it, and then you have to pulse it a little bit, and then when I go back on it.
So it’s certainly something that’s been very helpful for myself and several of my clients. And in fact, one of my clients couldn’t get pregnant, and we put her on chasteberry, and she got pregnant quickly. So just throwing that out there. But here you go. Chasteberry can be helpful, but it like zinc, it takes about three months, 90 to 100 days, to kick in.
So you need to see it happening. And the dosage can really differ depending on what you’re using it for. So for some people, they just need, like, the dosage on the bottle. Some people need twice the dosage that’s on the bottle. I do twice the dosage that’s on the bottle for me because my endometriosis and my pain is so severe.
Now what’s on the bottle is fine. So as I’ve gotten deeper into remission, my needs have lessened in that respect So pick one layer from the list, just one. Maybe it’s adding a serving of broccoli to your daily lunch. Maybe it’s swapping your plastic water bottle for glass. Maybe it’s [00:22:00] five-minute breathing exercise to lower stress.
But just pick one thing to do the cycle and chart it, and then notice how your next period feels. That’s how you peel the onion one layer at a time. Now, this might make no difference to you at this stage because maybe there’s something that’s triggering the pain that you have to deal with first.
So for me, it was a gluten intolerance, probably celiac, but by the time there were tests for it, I had already figured it out and I’m unwilling to eat gluten for two weeks and put myself through that pain and then my next period will be horrific again just for a diagnosis when I know I can’t eat gluten.
That makes a huge difference. One of my early clients had a dairy issue. So if you find that you are leaning on one food source really heavily, that may be your trigger food. We’ll talk about food down the line. But I just wanna say that these actions can really help in the moment. They can help in the long term.
They’re [00:23:00] worth starting and getting them sorted out now. These are easy things that you can do without having to upend everything. So see if they work, see how you feel. And like I said, if it’s not making a difference, there’s probably a bigger trigger that we’re gonna need to work through first, and we will go through those triggers as we go through this podcast together.
So that’s it for episode two. Oh my gosh, two of Pain Free Periods with Stasha. We talked about estrogen dominance and why it’s actually a ratio problem. It’s about estrogen relative to progesterone, not just too much estrogen. We talked about the thick uterine lining equaling more prostaglandins, equaling more pain, signs of heavy bleeding, clots, PMS, breast tenderness, fibroids, and more.
Action steps are split into two layers: lowering estrogen through liver support, gut support, and reducing environmental estrogen, raising progesterone through stress management, ovulation support, and targeted [00:24:00] nutrition. So pick just one layer and pick just one action and start there. Next week we’re diving into the second root cause that I talked about on our first episode, chronic inflammation.
We’ll talk about what’s driving it, how it makes period pain worse, and the specific foods and habits that can cool it down. So if this episode helped you, please share it with somebody who needs to hear it. Take a screenshot, tag me on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or whatever, I’m @StashaWashburn, and tell me which layer are you peeling first.
And if you’re ready to go deeper and figure out what’s going on for you, your exact ratio, I do work one-on-one with clients to help them understand their hormones and create a personalized plan, and I always do a free consult call with anyone with painful periods. It’s one hour. You get to pick my brain.
I will overwhelm you, but you will walk away feeling seen, heard, and with a ton of things that you can try. So I’ll put the links in the show notes. You can always head to theperiodcoach.com to learn more about me or Period Coaching [00:25:00] School if you decide maybe you wanna help others too. Remember, the revolution will be bloody, and it starts with understanding your hormones one layer at a time.
Until next time, take care of yourself. You’re worth it

This transcript is done by my video editing software and I look it over during editing, but the audio is my focus when I’m editing. It’s just me, so please forgive any mistakes.

The Onion Peel 3
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Onion Peel, a bonus miniseries where I answer one question or share one quick insight to help you peel back the layers of period pain. I’m your host, Stasha, the period coach and endometriosis warrior, and your guide to pain-free periods. Today’s question is, how do I start tracking my cycle?
I don’t even know where to begin. Very good question, and it’s where I start with everyone. Tracking, not just noting when your period is on the calendar, but really charting. Noting some key things is super important to reducing any period issues, uh, or just so that you know when you’re ovulating so you can plan and schedule your life in flow with your cycle to make your life easier.
So it’s one of the most common questions that I get, and it’s a great one. Tracking your cycle is the single most powerful tool you have for understanding your body. The difference between your random Tuesday today and your random Tuesday when you’re [00:01:00] tracking is enormous. You might be off-kilter trying to get things done, struggling, and when you’re tracking your cycle and you know what’s going on and where you’re gonna be and how you’re going to feel, instead, y- that random Tuesday is easy, it flows, it feels great.
You feel accomplished. You feel like you really w- won the day. So it makes a bigger difference than you can even imagine, and I can’t explain it. It’s just that powerful. So here’s how to start. I have a tracker. It is a mandala that you color. I don’t love period tracking apps because first of all, they’re guessing, and even with all of the algorithms and everything, they’re telling you, not you noticing.
So if you really want a good mind-body connection, it is pen and paper. It is the coloring mandala. It is something in your hand that you’re actually writing and putting words down [00:02:00] or notes down or coloring symbols in, so you really are cementing it. I don’t love the apps as well because in the United States, they’re all subpoena-able.
There is no such thing as a HIPAA compliant app. They can be HIPAA compliant, but they are all something that you can dive into. It does not matter where they are based. They can be in a different country. It’s still data that can come up in, in a subpoena case, and the more this country goes, the more I get a little nervous about that.
So I don’t love them, but honestly, they just don’t create connection, and they don’t give you the insights that you really need about your own cycle. You are a unique individual. So I don’t love them for that matter. But pick something that works for you and track the first day of your period. So day one is the first day of your period.
With the mandala, that would be a brand-new mandala on day one of your period, the first day of your period. If you’re really have truly irregular periods, then you can track with the moon cycle and [00:03:00] the new moon would be your day one. You’re gonna track your pain levels. So for like the mandala, I have a couple different colors that represent painful cramps.
There’s just a little light cramping. There’s a I had to get under the heated blanket cramping, and then there’s one that I have not used in ages, but there is a color for it was real bad. So do a pain level 1 to 10. Somehow differentiate what your pain levels are. And then on the mandala, there’s a space for your flow.
So was it light, medium, heavy? And you wanna note things like clots, if they’re really big, if there’s a lot of them, that kind of thing. It can be really helpful information.
On the mandala as well, you want to track your energy levels, I suggest high, medium, or low, and picking a different color for those different energy levels.
But you definitely wanna note that. You can start with those, and if you can get into the habit of noting those, then you add in things like mood. Were you anxious, happy, sad, irritable? Sleep. Did you sleep [00:04:00] well? Add in things like stress, anxiety into your symptoms area. Add what you ate. Really consistently tracking that can make an enormous difference on how you’re feeling.
So on the mandala there’s an apple, and I suggest you focus on one thing. Do one cycle where you’re giving up caffeine, or give one cycle where you’re eating really dark, leafy greens. Just note that, make sure you’re really incorporating it, and then see what it’s like for your next period. So consistently tracking it and then sw- you know, maybe switching it up if it’s some, it, hey, it worked, I’m gonna keep doing it, and now I’m gonna try this next cycle.
Or, this didn’t really seem to make much of a difference, I’m gonna try something else next cycle. Really starting to see those patterns. And when you notice your patterns, like your pain is spiking on day two, or your mood crashes the day before your period, or you have to have a nap two days before your period, you have clues.
All of these clues lead you to answers, [00:05:00] and that’s where the power of tracking comes up. If you don’t know where to start, just go download the mandala. I’ll put it in the show notes.
It’s got email support so you can have support along understanding what and why and how and where to get started. If you need to, you’re always welcome to email me or slide into the DMs, whatever you need. But just get started. It is more data and better than anything else you’ve ever done. You probably know what your astrology sign is.
I’m a Leo. You probably know what your Hogwarts house is. I’m Ravenclaw. You probably know a lot of those things, but what you don’t know is what phase of the cycle you’re in on any given day, and that matters far more than any personality quiz you’ve ever taken. It tells you everything. It shows you everything.
It gives you what you’re gonna feel like tomorrow, what you’re gonna feel like next week, all laid out for you. So start tracking. I really… This, the tracker that I have is [00:06:00] free forever. That’s how important I think charting is.
So that’s it for the Onion Peel episode today. If you have any questions you’d like me to answer, send it to me on Instagram or email. And until next time, take care of yourself. You are worth it.

This transcript is done by my video editing software and I look it over during editing, but the audio is my focus when I’m editing. It’s just me, so please forgive any mistakes.

The Onion Peel 2

​[00:00:00]

Welcome back to The Onion Peel, a bonus miniseries where I answer one question or share one quick insight to help you peel back the layers of period pain. I’m your host, Stasha the Period Coach and endometriosis survivor, and your guide to pain-free periods. Today’s question, is there anything I can eat during my period to help with pain?

And I would argue that what you eat will help reduce your pain more than any pharmaceutical or over-the-counter medicine, and in some cases, what you choose to eat right before or during your period can be more impactful than any of those in your immediate pain. So absolutely yes is the answer. While you can’t erase all of the pain with food, you can reduce the inflammation and support your body’s natural pain-fighting mechanisms.

So here’s three things, just big ones that I see work over and over again that I talk to my clients about and anyone who comes to me that has a [00:01:00] painful period. First things first is gonna be magnesium-rich foods. You need magnesium to relax your muscles, which includes the uterine muscles, right? So dark chocolate, yay.

Pumpkin seeds, leafy greens. Google magnesium-rich foods, find things that you really like, and try to incorporate them all the time. Don’t just survive off of dark chocolate. Do get in the leafy greens, especially those dark ones. And pumpkin seeds is in seed cycling, so if you’re seed cycling, that can be right there, you’ve already started.

The second thing that I really like is omega-3 fatty acids. These are anti-inflammatory. They directly lower prostaglandin production, which we talked about in the very first episode. So think about salmons, sardines, walnuts, anything that’s rich in omega-3s.

Again, have a Google, find things that really work well for you. I love salmon and I loved little tinned sardines. I can’t eat walnuts, but [00:02:00] I put them on anything and everything. And the third is my secret weapon, ginger. It’s a natural anti-inflammatory and it also blocks pain receptors. So when I was in the worst of my pain, I found ginger to actually peel back a layer of pain bigger than ibuprofen and the prescription ibuprofen and the prescription narcotics I was given, any of those things.

I still found a really strong cup of ginger tea made a bigger impact on my pain in the moment than anything else. So try ginger tea, add some honey if you need to. I found a great company that has CBD infused honey that I often add to my ginger tea when I’m in a pain flare. It’s really helpful.

It’s warming, it’s soothing, and it can absolutely help reduce your pain. On the flip side of the coin, you will need to avoid some things. One of them is caffeine. It’s one of the last things that I gave up when I was working on [00:03:00] reducing my pain. I really love my caffeine. I don’t know if it’s ’cause I’m a Brooklyn baby and I absolutely love coffee, but getting rid of the caffeine was a big one for me.

It constricts blood vessels so it can make your cramping worse. Sugar can spike your inflammation, so really trying to reduce sugar, it’s so hard to do in that phase when you’re already, cravings and cranky and everything else. So one of the things that I really like to do is make a sweet potato pudding, chocolate pudding.

It doesn’t have any sugar in it. It satisfies that sweetness, and I’ll put the link to my recipe in the show notes. It really, having it on hand and ready to go when I’m getting close to my period makes an enormous difference in my grabbing junk versus eating something that will help reduce the inflammation.

Processed foods, especially highly processed foods, can worsen period pain and bloating and all of the intestinal distress that’s going on. So the next time your period starts, try [00:04:00] swapping your morning coffee for a ginger tea. Add some dark chocolate for magnesium and just because it’s delicious.

So just try and pick something, get started, have it on hand, and make your life a little bit easier when you get into that painful period area. That’s it for this week’s Onion Peel. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, send it to me on Instagram or email. Until next time, take care of yourself.

You are worth it.

This transcript is done by my video editor and I look it over during editing, but the audio is my focus when I’m editing. It’s just me, so please forgive any mistakes.

The Onion Peel: When is Period Pain Normal or Time for a Doctor? S1E1

Stasha: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Onion Peel. This is a bonus miniseries, and I’m gonna do this throughout hopefully the entirety of this podcast, where I’m gonna answer one listener question or share one quick insight to help you peel back the layers of period pain. So just because we’re getting started again, I’m your host, Stasha the Period Coach, fellow endo warrior, and your guide to pain-free periods.

Today’s question comes from one of my email list people, as I haven’t really gotten this podcast out. You know, today is only day two. So I asked my email list, “Hey, do you have any questions about period pain?” And one of them said, “How do I know if my period pain is normal or if it’s time to go to the doctor?”

Which, fantastic question. So the short answer, if your period pain stops you from living your life, so if you’re missing work, school, or social plans, that’s not normal. And if you’ve been told it’s just bad periods and you have to live with it, that’s not true either. Now, I do absolutely think that [00:01:00] during our periods, having some downtime, some rest time, not going out to do those social things, not showing up to everything that you don’t necessarily have to show up is probably a great thing to do.

You do want to give your body time to rest and relax and just do… you know, bleed. Just do what it’s doing. But pain is your body’s signal that something needs attention. It’s not a character flaw, and it’s not weakness. It’s information. This was tough for me. It’s not weakness, it’s information. Definitely a mantra that I have had to use over the years.

So if you’re asking that question, I want you to trust yourself. If you’re in a space where you’re going, “Boy, is this bad enough?” The answer is yes. It’s time to go to the doctor. You know your body best, and if it feels wrong, it is wrong. So here’s what I recommend. Start a symptom log. Track your pain level every day, not just during your period.

Write down what you eat, how you’re sleeping, and how you’re feeling mood-wise, emotions, introverted, extroverted, angry, irritated, sad, [00:02:00] happy, glad, whatever it is. Bring that log to your next appointment so it gives you the data, not just feelings. And when you get into that doctor’s office and it gets eh feeling, it’s nice to have the data to lay back and go, “Hey, here’s what I’ve got.”

And if your doctor is dismissing you, find a new doctor. Just period. I don’t care what’s going on. If your doctor is dismissing you, find a new doctor. So that’s a nice quick little onion peel for this week. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, send it to me on Instagram or my email, you’re anywhere, just get in touch.

Uh, we’ll have another one for you tomorrow as part of our kickoff for the first week of this launch of the new podcast. Until tomorrow, take care of yourself. You’re worth it.

This transcript is done by my video editor and I look it over during editing, but the audio is my focus when I’m editing. It’s just me, so please forgive any mistakes.

S1E1 Pain-Free Periods with Stasha: Root Causes Unveiled

Stasha: [00:00:00] Have you ever felt like your period pain is running your life? Like you’re just surviving that week instead of actually living? If that sounds familiar, you’re in exactly the right place. Welcome to Pain Free Periods with Stasha. I’m your host, period coach, endometriosis warrior, and your guide to understanding why your period hurts and exactly what to do about it.

This podcast is different from the chatty interview style shows you might have heard. This is your weekly audio masterclass. Every episode, we’re going to dive deep into the physical, the emotional, and the mental sides of menstrual pain, and most importantly, we’re talking about prevention, real solutions, not just coping

You can expect actionable takeaways every single episode. No fluff, just the tools you need to stop surviving your period and start healing it. You might be wondering, what exactly [00:01:00] is a period coach and why do I need one?

I’m so glad you asked.

A period coach is somebody who helps you understand your cycle, not just the bleeding part, but the whole hormonal symphony that happens every single month. We look at nutrition, stress, movement, lifestyle, everything to figure out what’s driving your pain, and we create a personalized plan to address it.

I’m not a doctor. I don’t prescribe. I don’t diagnose. But I do help you become the expert on your own body, so you advocate for yourself, make informed decisions, and finally get the relief you deserve. I’m not just a coach. I’ve lived this journey myself. I know what it’s like to be dismissed, to be told it’s normal, and to spend years searching for answers.

That’s exactly why I became a period coach. I help women just like you figure out what’s really going on and take back control. Now let’s get into it. Today I’m giving you a sneak peek into four root causes of period pain that I work on with all of my clients.

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a [00:02:00] much clearer picture of what might be going on in your body and a roadmap for what to do next. When I work with a client, I don’t just look at their cramps in isolation. I look at the whole picture, and almost always the period pain falls into one or more of these four categories.

So root one, hormonal imbalance, most likely estrogen dominance. The first and most common cause I see is hormonal imbalance, specifically too much estrogen relative to progesterone.

So what’s happening and why does it cause pain? Estrogen is a growth hormone. It makes the uterine lining thick. A thicker lining means more prostaglandins are produced when it sheds, and more prostaglandins equals more pain. Progesterone is the calming, balancing hormone. I often jokingly refer to it as the Cheech and Chong hormone because it’s the hormone that helps you chill.

When it’s too low, estrogen runs unchecked and inflammation goes up. So some signs that this might be [00:03:00] you: heavy periods with large clots, breast tenderness before your period, PMS that feels emotionally chaotic, shall we say, or pain that starts before your period actually begins. So if this is you, this is where diet and lifestyle come in.

Supporting your liver, which clears excess estrogen, and adding foods that support progesterone can make a massive difference. Root cause number two, chronic inflammation. This is something I absolutely battle with with endometriosis Chronic inflammation is a big one for anyone with endometriosis, but it can affect anyone with painful periods.

So adenomyosis, PMDD, all of these things can have this as one of their root cause. Might not be the only one, but it certainly can be chronic inflammation that’s causing it, and in all of my clients, I’ve absolutely seen this particular thing help. So that [00:04:00] constant low-grade inflammation, not great for your body.

Inflamed tissues are more sensitive to prostaglandins, so the pain signal is amplified. This can come from diet, stress, an underlying condition, and without addressing the inflammation, you’re kinda just putting a Band-Aid on the pain. So some signs that this might be you is if you have other inflammatory conditions, so skin issues, digestive problems like Crohn’s or celiac or ulcerative colitis, joint pain, achy knees, achy elbows, old injuries that you notice around your period start to get more achy.

If your periods are heavy and painful or you feel bloated and puffy all the time. Also, frequent headaches or migraines can be a real clue that you’re dealing with chronic inflammation. So you wanna do an anti-inflammatory diet to just get started with this. [00:05:00] Omega-3s, magnesium, and definitely cutting back on your sugar, processed foods, even caffeine and alcohol can help lower your overall inflammation.

Okay, root cause number three, nutrient deficiencies. This is something that I have seen in every client and every other period coach, doctor that I have spoken with has also said the same thing. Every client that’s come in has had nutrient deficiencies. So it’s definitely overlooked, and most people don’t realize it’s going on, but it really is something that I have seen over and over again.

So when you’re low on magnesium, for example, that relaxes your muscles and lowers prostaglandins, your cramps are more intense. Zinc supports hormone production and reduces inflammation, so if you’re ,low on zinc, it makes pain and PMS worse. Vitamin B, especially B6, helps balance hormones and helps regulate your mood, so if you’re feeling a lot of mood swings, vitamin B could [00:06:00] be helpful.

Your PMS can get worse when you’re low on any of these, but definitely your B vitamins. Your iron, low iron can make you more sensitive to pain. It can make you feel more exhausted and achy. So if you’re always tired, you have muscle cramps or twitches, your skin, your hair, or your nails are brittle.

If you crave sugar or salts, what you can do is go get tested. Y- just ask. It, hopefully in your blood work every year you can do this. But even without testing, focusing on nutrient-dense foods like leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and high-quality proteins can be a game changer. I didn’t have insurance for a long time, so I didn’t do any testing.

I just really ate assuming I had these deficiencies and added in some supplements, and it made an enormous difference. When I was able to finally get tested, things were in the good zone, so I keep on with all of my supplements and good ways of eating. [00:07:00] And our last root cause that we’ll dive into today is stress and nervous system dysregulation.

It’s one that connects everything. Stress and a dysregulated nervous system also are gonna inflect inflammation, chronic inflammation, all of these things, so it really is a bit of a we all work together or we all go down together sort of situation. So when you’re chronically stressed, your body produces cortisol, and cortisol disrupts your hormones.

Your body literally steals from progesterone to make cortisol. It’s called a cortisol steal. So if you’re getting more cortisol than progesterone, it increases your inflammation, and if you’re stressed out, your body will make cortisol instead of progesterone, which increases your inflammation.

Your nervous system stays in fight or flight mode, and your body doesn’t feel safe, so it can’t relax. That means your pain signals get amplified. So if you feel anxious or overwhelmed most days, you have trouble sleeping, your [00:08:00] periods are irregular or painful, you hold tension in your neck, your jaw, your shoulders, those are all signs that this could be you.

So this is where your nervous system regulation comes in, deep breathing, gentle movement, creating space for rest. Your body can’t heal if it’s in survival mode. You have to absolutely get into that rest and digest state where you feel safe so that you can, in fact, heal. So your action steps. Figure out which one is you.

So take a pause, take a moment. Which one is you? And I have to say that most of my clients have a combination of these four causes, so you don’t have to pick just one, and if all four of them are like, “Oh, boy, that sounds like me,” don’t worry. You’re in the same bus as I am. You’re in the same boat as many of our clients are, and there are certainly things that will always come up and can also affect each other.

So if you have one, if you don’t start to manage it, you’re [00:09:00] going to have two, three, four, right? So listen to your body, pick the categories that feel the most familiar with you, and pick just one thing to focus on. You can’t do everything at once. You have to just do these things one at a time, making one really easy thing.

So- Maybe it’s just adding in magnesium. I recommend magnesium glycinate. So maybe it’s just saying, “All right, I’m gonna start taking magnesium glycinate before I go to bed.”

Maybe it’s starting a daily breathing practice. You just start the day with three deep breaths, or you take a lunch break and you do some inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. We call it 4-7-8 breathing. But maybe it’s just simply starting a breathing practice. It’s free, it’s easy, you can do it every day.

So track it. We’re gonna talk a lot about charting on this podcast. You need to chart and track what’s going on. What are you doing and what are you feeling? So notice how your period feels. Notice how you feel each day. Did it [00:10:00] change after you did your breathing cycle? Did you sleep better after taking magnesium?

Did something shift? So you ha- don’t fix everything and all at once, you just need small, consistent changes to add up for big results. And the more data you gather, the more empowered you become to advocate for yourself. So what are you gonna pick? Feel free to email me, slide into the DMs, whatever it is, but let me know what felt…

root cause felt like you, and what are you gonna pick for your first thing to try to reduce your pain? And remember, pain is like an onion. You have to peel it off layer by layer. Rarely does one thing take care of the whole problem. For myself and all of my clients dealing with really bad pain, it’s one level, one layer at a time.

So pick one thing and just get that one thing going so that we can get to the next layer of the onion. So thank you for tuning in. This is it [00:11:00] for episode one of Pain-Free Periods with Stasha. We talked a little bit about what a period coach is. It’s the difference from seeing a doctor. It is that gap that needs to be filled, where you are actually listened to, heard, understood, and somebody will work with you and your life to get to the root cause and help bring that balance and pain relief in Your four root causes that we talked about today, hormonal imbalance, so an estrogen dominance, though I hate using that word because it’s really in relation to your progesterone, but excess estrogen in relation to your progesterone, so we’ll just say hormonal imbalance.

Chronic inflammation. Number three was nutrient deficiencies. Four was stress and nervous system dysregulation. So your action steps, pick one cause to focus on in this cycle and just try that one. Next week, we’ll talk about a deep dive into the first root [00:12:00] cause, that hormonal imbalance, and I’m gonna walk you through exactly how estrogen and progesterone work, and how to tell if you’re experiencing what’s known as estrogen dominance, uh, and the specific steps you can take to rebalance your hormones naturally.

You’re not gonna wanna miss it, so stay tuned. If this episode helped you, please share it with somebody who needs to hear it. Take a screenshot, tag me on social media. I’m @StashaWashburn. Yes, Washburn. As a kid, my bullies called me, “Go wash your burn.” So hit me up there. Let me know which of the four root causes resonated with you, and like I said, you’re absolutely welcome to slip into the DMs or email me.

I’m stasha@theperiodcoach.com. And if you’re ready to go deeper and figure out your exact root cause, I work with one-on-one with clients to create personalized plans for pain-free periods. If you want to, I always do one free hour to pick my brain with anybody who has painful periods. [00:13:00] All you have to do is reach out.

So again, email me, slide into the DMs, and we’re absolutely happy to send you that link, and we can chat. Remember, the revolution will be bloody. It’s the name of my first book, and it’s absolutely something I believe in. And that revolution starts with you understanding your own body. Until next time, take care of yourself.

You’re worth it.