In this episode, we unpack dopamine (not in regard to gut health) but how it swings and weighs down our pain/pleasure balance in the brain. How these mechanisms overcompensate and try and maintain a state of equilibrium - meaning the more "dopamine heavy" our lives are, for one, the more of that stimulus we need to avoid pain or feeling, but also increasing our susceptibility to physical pain. We talk about adaptation and how fleeting a dopamine hit truly is and how it impacts our sustainable happiness in our lives. We talk about how we are evolved to avoid pain in our lives and this makes the appeal of unnatural dopamine hits that much more attractive. However, if we learn to face our fear and our pain, use it as our guide and teacher, we can learn what these negative emotions are telling us and trying to encourage us to grow. Then, we shift gears and chat about HRT in premenopausal women - sharing true client stories, my own journey, and the suitability in relying on HRT to "mute" our hormonal symptoms and learning WHY hormones go low in the first place, that is where we need to turn to "balancing hormones". Hormones can absolutely be balanced naturally, but it requires CHANGE. It requires doing things differently in the way we synchronize with our hormones, our eating patterns, the way we fuel our bodies, and connect to our natural sleep cycles. All of these and more are how we start supporting hormones and get the body to a place of balance so that our hormones can regulate as they are designed to. To order a DUTCH, to assess hormones, cortisol, the interplay between all of the together, and their detox pathways, click HERE. For more of these things, head to my IG @dr.stacy.nd Thank you so much for being here! -Dr. Stacy