The Truth About Hormones: How Men & Women Differ – With John Gray

Dr. Mindy
Just like you know, I have geeked out on hormones and fasting, you have now geeked out on hormones and relationships, and I can’t wait to have this conversation. So let me just start off by welcoming you to the resetter podcast.

John Gray
Thank you so much. I’m really happy to spend this time with you. Dr. Mindy.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, thank you. So here is I’m just gonna go right to the hormones, because when I, I actually listened to your most recent book, and it was so good. I then bought it so that I could physically read it. And the two chapters that just blew my mind was the one on testosterone and the one on estrogen. And the idea that the way men and women need to manage cortisol spike is different according to our our testosterone and estrogen needs. So can we just jump into the hormonal aspect

John Gray
of that? Absolutely. You know, I wrote men are from Mars, Women are from Venus 27 years ago, it’s still a best seller around the world. But the world has changed a lot. And so I needed to update that book. And people today need a lot more evidence to explain why men and women are so different. And and what’s happened to us today, because there’s a big switch in our hormones. So the world is in place. And I think for everybody listening to me, at least, we talked about many women in relationships, there’s not a lot of conversation that allows us to say we’re different. And I thank you, Dr. Mindy, and all the researchers into women’s hormones, because that becomes something that nobody can disagree with. We all know, biologically, women’s hormones are very different from men’s This is understandable. We’re just looking at hormone tests. So I’m gonna go with just simple basic things. And I love talking with you, we’re so much aligned in terms of understanding our hormones, it’s so important, because simply foot for men, typically speaking, a man needs 10 to 20 times more testosterone in order to not be in the stress zone. Okay, so Oh, wow, if a man has producing, if a man is producing adrenaline, which is the precursor to cortisol, and his testosterone is going up when he’s producing adrenaline. But his estrogen is rising. And as his estrogen rises as his female hormone, his testosterone at a certain point will start to go down and estrogen becomes dominant. For example, when a man is angry, he’s not testosterone dominant, he’s estrogen dominant. When a man is depressed, he’s estrogen dominant, not testosterone dominant, when a man is confident, he’s testosterone dominant. And when he’s testosterone and happy, he has high levels of estrogen, but he’s still testosterone dominant. So this is this is just think of it masculine energy is your testosterone side. For women, you have a testosterone side, and men have an S n, and men have an estrogen side as well. And we know women, estrogen is a key player along with progesterone, and those are Keith and testosterone. But the reality is women’s cycle and after beyond cycling, has a huge impact on Are they nurturing the right hormones at that time, huh? Yeah. And so what you bring to the table, I’d love it. I love it. And I’m learning from you on fasting. It’s just so I’m intermittent faster, faster, as well. And now I’m going to really encourage women when to do it, because I didn’t have that knowledge. today. Yeah, thank you so many, so many women was I just can’t do it. It makes me crazy. And now I know why is simply because you need to do it a certain time in your period. And you have to go through to find that information. I’m explaining is where the best times for romance, for example, or it’s the time we want to be fasting. That’s what your romance levels are, you’re dependent on stimulation to go to a higher level of estrogen. So what I talk about is, they get right into it, managing stress, when women’s hormones are deficient, or they’re out of balance. She will experience adrenaline and cortisol, and that inhibits all health and inhibits your mood. What happens and when a man’s testosterone is low, when his estrogen is too high compared to his testosterone, he will be in the stress mode. So a depressed man has just low testosterone, he could also have low estrogen as well. But an angry man, a violent man, an irritated man, a pouting man, rigid man, all the worst quality of the masculinity only occur when his testosterone is low. And that sort of aggressive side of him happens when his estrogen is high. This amazing information. And so, you know, love think about so what are some of the qualities of testosterone when your testosterone is healthy and your female hormones are in balance, particularly estrogen when estrogen is where it needs to be at that time of your period of your cycle or afterwards, you feel love, you feel happy, you feel appreciation, you feel trusting what’s happening there. Those are the natural qualities, appreciation, trusting, accepting, grateful, validating, there’s the positive side that we all have only occurs when our estrogen or progesterone is in the right place at the right time of the month.

This is amazing stuff. And for men, all of his negativity that I said associated with low testosterone or low testosterone and high estrogen. Now you have a few variations of this is it 10 times higher as your, basically your average for men when they’re experiencing well being. And when you have romantic feelings for someone, your testosterone is going even higher than just well being so as a man, you know, I love my wife, I live close to her whatever. And there’s some times when I’m really wanting to be connect with her, I’m feeling a need to connect with her. That feeling the need to collect connect with her emotionally and physically, to what I miss her want to be with her what’s going on my hormones at that time, my testosterone is higher than where it needs to be, if I’m going to feel drawn to her, my testosterone goes higher than my average well being. Now I want my estrogen levels that come up to find the right balance for me. And the right balance for me is somewhere where my estrogen is high, but my testosterone is higher. So my so let’s say I’m working really, really hard. And I’m on my traveling, I’m away from my wife, because any kind of connection, personal connection produces estrogen, right? So this is the whole thing about what as a therapist, why 90% of the people that come to a therapist are women, because you get a chance to do two things to feel safe and depend on someone to fulfill a very important need, which is to feel heard, to be seen is a very, very big thing for a man, go over to your male side is I want what I do to be heard and seen and valued. See, men are all about, look what I can do, because that produces testosterone. And we’re also about I’m a loving person, I’m a caring person, I’m a good person, that’s my estrogen side. And we have both sides the difference between men and women. To be a little political for a moment, the way I would define a woman is she has a whole different set of hormones that require different needs, which allows her to be her best self. And her best self, or her best self is a balance of masculine and feminine. And therefore she’s not that different from a man in terms of behavior and responses when she’s in her best self. And a man when he’s in his best best self, is we’ll call authentic self wholesale, is not that different from a woman. So you know, you know, when I say men and women are different, those differences show up the most when our hormones are out of balance. And so we know that we know that. Another practical insight for both women and men to know is when when you have if you’re in one part of your cycle, and your estrogen is too low. And this is paradoxical about women, which is, as you know, when she went towards ovulation, her estrogen levels are rising. Let’s say they’re not then she’s going to be stressed. Then afterwards, she still needs estrogen. But her progesterone still needs to be rising. Otherwise, she’ll be needy and the relationship she’ll be looking for the wrong thing. This is very interesting, isn’t it time your knees are changing. A human being has one of my books called How to get what you want, what would you have, it’s my book on success and happiness and fulfillment. It doesn’t focus on the hormones like the new book, but it explains something very important. As human beings, we have a variety of emotional needs. And let’s say you’re been alone for a while you feel the need for intimacy with someone. And while you’re filling up with intimacy, It’s so fulfilling, but you may be neglecting all your other emotional needs to produce your estrogen. See, for example, when you’re nurturing a child, it’s producing estrogen, a lot of estrogen and And ironically, the right amount of testosterone. It because when you’re when you’re giving to a child that way, you’re doing it from a place of, of weakness. It’s a kind of unconditional love, which means I’m not doing this to make money. Right? Yeah, okay, so not to make money.

Whenever you’re giving of yourself to not make money, you’re actually on your female side, when you’re giving of yourself to make money that’s goal oriented, then you’re more on your male side, and there’s nothing wrong at all. With women going to their male side. The problem is, they sometimes disconnect at most commonly, they’re not also nurturing their female side. So let’s say you’re a woman CEO, and you’re running your business, that’s all testosterone production. So how do you stay in balance? Well, there’s two ways. One is after work, you go to a world which produces lots of estrogen and what is that? Okay, so, to summarize that, it’s anything that makes you feel happy He makes you feel good, makes you feel relaxed. And one of the phrases for it that I like is do what you like, whenever you’re doing what you’d like to do, you’re making estrogen when you’re doing what you don’t like to do. But you have to do in order to make money, or even even what you have to do to take care of your children, you’re basically making testosterone, but that’s okay. Because you’re also making estrogen because you’re you’re giving from your heart for your children, you’re not giving for your money. And so there’s a impersonal side of life and a personal side of life. And everything to do with personal side of life is going to be estrogen stimulating. Now, some of those things, which are estrogen stimulating, are good for you. They’re always going to help lower your stress temporarily. But some things like overeating, for example.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I was gonna say, how do you define good, because it’s right, you could go crazy on this one. So go for it.

John Gray
So if you just look at hormones, anytime we’ve simplify things, knowing that life is complex, and it’s a blend of both these opposite things all the time, but we just look over to estrogen side. What makes estrogen rise is when you feel trust, and you can depend on something to make you happy. So food always makes us happy, right? And so over eating, if you’re low on estrogen, let me just eat some food. And the more I depend on that food to be happy that I’m depending on that it’s a for males, their big problem is not always food, but can be to some extent, but for them, we have this new thing called porn. This is all introduction, human, never, never in history, unless you were the emperor of China. Could you have 64,000 women wanting to have sex with you? Or at least pretending to want to have sex with you? Wow, that’s his harem. Yeah, but 1000. And that kept his testosterone up. Because the new woman every time new and different, new and different, stimulates dopamine, which gives him a boost of testosterone. But unfortunately, if it’s new and different every time, that creates a change in the brain, where you depend upon high dopamine stimulation, to produce the testosterone, you need to feel good. So that’s what’s called a behavior that makes you feel good, because it gives him a surge of testosterone. But now he’s addicted to that high dopamine stimulation of new and different and is unable to maintain intimacy with his partner with his wife, there’s no longer intimate intimacy with Him. So this is like amazing information because people today are always Oh, you know, men are basically biological. polygamous, okay, we’re supposed to spread our seed everywhere. And yes, they’re men are also violent to biologically. That’s your primitive brain, your primitive brain, if somebody hurts you, it says you need to be eliminated. That’s a part of all of us. But we’re not just a monkey, okay? We’re not just a snake or came, we have this prefrontal cortex up here, which elevates us to our humaneness and even our divineness, which is, you know, I consider the Divine is is all the, whenever you’re following that which is good for you, in life supporting your Divine is coming through, and it comes through with the prefrontal cortex of the brain, when you’re experiencing hormonal imbalance, the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex of the brain will tend to become diminished, and you start just reacting based upon childhood conditioning. Or if it’s a high stress, you react based upon primitive instincts, okay? Yes, different parts of the brain get activated, depending upon how stressed you are. The first level of stress is adrenaline, the next one is cortisol. And there you’re pretty much going on instinct, and you. But even when you’re kind of like, just normal, you’re not life threatening, or whatever. What’s happening is you have two parts of the front brain, which are regulated by your hormones, okay. And the front brain regulates your hormones as well. It’s basically different parts of the body in relationship. So for example, if I’m a woman, and I’m looking at all the problems in my life, basically what’s going on is my testosterone is going up for a woman and the prefrontal cortex. It’s the right prefrontal cortex that becomes activated, which is the worrier, which is the pessimist, which is looking,

Dr. Mindy
I know her I know her.

John Gray
And let’s take it to the worst level, which is so common today for many people, is they put those people who are worrying, who are upset, they’re crying, or they’re depressed or they’re anxious, which is all right prefrontal cortex brain activity. They put them in an MRI and they see that they’re having a dopamine experience similar to cocaine from worrying from worrying from negative thinking. Negative thinking, it’s addictive is addictive. It is just as addictive as cocaine. And what happens is, when you have high dopamine stimulation, the normal functioning of the brain change where it becomes dependent upon high dopamine stimulation. And literally, for example, the first time you take cocaine, if you’ve taken it 30% of your dopamine receptor sites practically disappear. That means your ability to feel pleasure is 1/3 taken away. And so when you don’t feel pleasure, then you your brain seeks out that pleasure to be motivated. And now you just reinforced the problem. And gradually, life and life become more boring without your drug. And so just worry, which in this case is this case is worrying, it’s worrying. And it’s basically which is caused by when your hormones go out of balance. Okay, so you’re a woman, you’re worrying, which means I can’t depend on others have to do it myself. Okay, I can’t depend on others. I have to do it myself. Does that sound familiar with Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mindy
I feel like you might have been in my kitchen this morning, having a cup of coffee with

John Gray
everyone, because I don’t haven’t counseled everyone who but anyone, when it comes to my office, millions of people have taken my workshops and 1000s of people take it by Count say, you know, basically, they think I’m a mind reader. I go, No, you’re just every other woman. Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing what goes on with the hormones and so, but just to know, when you’re harmed, if you’re a woman, your hormones are out of balance for your age, and where you are in life, if they’re out of balance for you. And we know General indicators of what out of balance looks like and you would be an expert at that as well. And but just simply put, when you compare a woman to a man, which I like to differentiate, it also helps us to know ourselves is we’re the same and we’re different. And what’s interesting is that’s what a university used to teach unity in diversity, unity in diversity. So what is similar in us, and how are we diverse? And everybody talks about diversity today? But basically, they’re saying men and women are the same.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. Well, yeah. So interesting. On that, and are the ones

John Gray
have to abide by law? I mean, here’s the Supreme Court person. Can you define a woman? The simplest thing Harmar hormones are women can make babies men can’t. And they can’t say that politically, because we’ve just gone off the cliff in terms of logic today. But thank goodness, we have science, where you basically can say, Yes, we can all I can be conditioned to be a woman, there’s no question about it, you can be but my hormones will still be masculine, and I’ll be depressed. I need stimulation from my culture that says, I’m a man and I need particular kinds of support. And women needs stimulation from the culture, that’s telling you how to behave, you know, we follow the leader kind of we duplicate a huge amount of us, it’s just what we’ve been trained to be. If I’ve been trained to be a man, I’m a woman, I’m gonna have so many hormone problems. So, so that we’re talking about women and menopause and beyond menopause. If you’ve had unsuccessful relationships with men, you’re alone in the world. Yeah. So you’re gonna be making your, it’s a feeling of I have to do it myself, I have to do it myself. I don’t have someone I can depend on for help. And is depending on for others for help. That is a primary producer of estrogen.

Dr. Mindy
Okay. This is key so that I don’t I don’t want to lose this point. Because this was my I literally was listening to your book, on a plane, heading to Vegas for a conference I was speaking at. And when I heard you talk about the difference between men and women and how we handle stress, according to our hormones, I like almost jumped out of my chair. I was like, Oh my gosh, so estrogen, what and I want you to really, like lay this out. So estrogen, when we’re stressed, has a different need in a woman than testosterone in a man when he stressed. So explain that because

John Gray
Very simply put, if I’m stressed, it’s always when a man is stressed. What’s happening is is first of all, let’s preface what does what makes a man feel really good. We all know this to be the case. When he’s confident and he’s successful. Okay, that’s his whole thing. Or when his team you know, when you look at when men’s testosterone goes the highest is when they’re, their team wins. So if they love their team, and they win, men’s testosterone are shooting up. That’s crazy. It’s crazy stuff. And, and for a woman, she can have her testosterone go up because it’s her team too. But her estrogen is gonna go off if she knows the players, okay?

Dr. Mindy
This is my parents, their warrior fans, and when they sit down, my dad wants to make sure they’re the 80s he wants to make sure they win. My mom wants to tell me about all the couples and who’s dating who and what the relationships are like, of the players.

John Gray
It’s, it’s amazing. It’s so so there’s different hormones even being stimulated then, and so, but when a man feels unsuccessful, and we’re always you know, You get up in the morning you look at your you put on your makeup you put on your hair you look at, you look at the mirror and say How do I look today? What do I want to wear today? I don’t want to be boring. I want to look pretty. I wonder the you have your preferences, what do you want to eat today? They all those activities are estrogen stimulating their personal activities, particularly if it’s I’m going to do what I like to do. If you look, historically, a lot of stuff has changed now because we become more like each other. But our hormones are still a million years of evolution, we are very, very different. So if you look at kind of men and outfits, for example, men used to have your chef, you get to wear a big white hat. If you’re a top chef, you get a bigger hat, okay? It’s it’s like, if you’re a soldier, you get badges and you have a uniform you wear every day, your outfit demonstrates your competence.

Dr. Mindy
And is that is that raising your testosterone? Yes,

John Gray
yes, yes. I remember as a little boy watching this cowboy movie of this famous cowboy who got all became an alcoholic you know, they didn’t need him anymore. And finally this girl, young girl goes, we need you. We need you come on as I Oh, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. His estrogens high just listen, lay around do nothing. No motivation. I’m done with all that. She says no, we need you. Nobody can do this. But you You are the one. So need wakes up a man’s motivation. So that he says okay, I’ll do it. And you watch this transformation in him. I remember as he started putting on his cowboy outfit. I mean, he had this very cool cowboy outfit. And, and this is what I feel like sometimes when I put on my suit to go, you’re not putting on my outfit. This makes me the expert. You know, is it this is men’s makeup is what car I’m driving what my books are behind me. I’ve written 28 books bestsellers. Yeah, it’s like, it’s fantastic. dosterone Exactly. That’s it testosterone booster. It’s a testosterone booster. So that’s primarily not that a woman couldn’t want to show her books and whatever, you got your wonderful books behind you. But that’s not your major source of hormonal balance. That hormonal balance for a woman is I have a voice and I am seen and I am heard and I have helped I need support in my life. I don’t have to do it all myself. And you know, I see your big smile as you’re talking to me. That’s the voice. I like what I’m doing. I’m enjoy. I truly am enjoying what I do. It’s who I am. It’s authentic. pneus. And that’s the interesting thing. If we look at our authentic you nobody’s talking about I want to be my authentic self. What is your authentic self? Well, that would be the part of you this not just masculine, not just feminine, but it’s a blend of both of your that if you’re the CEO, and you’re a woman or you’re stressed in your work, okay, you’re on your male side, you need to be able to anticipate coming into an environment, when you leave work that is very, very supportive moreso than then a traditional environment. Okay, so if you’re away on your male side, and you come home to a traditional environment where you had children and you had dishes to clean or house to clean or food to cook with, those are all nurturing activities, they’re estrogen stimulating. But if you’re away on your male side, you need more than that. And that’s what the wake up call is in this book is that women today have a new need. And men have a new need as well. What is that?

Dr. Mindy
So okay, wait, we have to unpack a lot of what so so because, you know, as a woman who has had a career, I can definitely say that I know when I you know, move into my more masculine side, that I tap into that testosterone, but transitioning back into the household hasn’t always been the easiest. So what I hear from you is, I should cook dinner I actually really liked dinner cooked for me. Yeah, yes. Nurtured

John Gray
Yes. See, nurturing is one activity, it is nurturing produces estrogen, because when you’re giving without making money, what you’re getting back, you don’t just nurture anybody. You might nurture your dog who loves you unconditionally. You nurture your child that loves you unconditionally. So giving to a child, I’m here with my little kids, the women would come visit Bonnie’s friends, they come they want to hold the baby and they want to change the diapers of the baby who wants to change diapers, right? It’s like nurturing is a estrogen stimulating activity. Because you’re getting you need to feel that unconditional love and it’s a part of who you are as a woman. So the all the other aspects of estrogen production are feeling someone’s doing something for me, the only one, see when you’re doing something for somebody else, you’re on your male side. That’s testosterone. That’s testosterone. So when you’re in a relationship that will look at unsuccessful relationships, successful relationships, both have to do with giving unsuccessful relationship is called giving too much that a successful relationship is giving an arrest, giving back what you’ve received. Right. It’s it’s not reciprocity. I was trying to say in that context, right City, there’s a sense of women have a basic female genes very strong compared to a man, we just put it in terms of we don’t really know that to be case, but it’s a playful way of saying it. But women have a greater awareness of the need for reciprocity. Which means if you do something for me, I should do something for you. And I want to do something for you. Okay, so if you give me $100, I want to give you $100. Okay, I’m not gonna go broke that way. But let’s say you give me $50. And I give you $100. Now, what happens is, you feel like you’re out of balance.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And so you’re tanking your estrogen. Your estrogen is going down?

John Gray
That’s right. That’s right. So as you whatever you give, that’s your testosterone side, that’s your male side, you have to balance it with your estrogen side. So if you’re too far on your male side, it means you’re giving more than you’re getting.

Dr. Mindy
Okay, so this, so here’s, oh, my gosh, John, this is so good. Because I once I understood hormones for food and fasting, and what goes through women go through when they go through menopause, I was like, If men and women understood the menopausal journey, from hormone perspective, I think a lot of marriages could be saved. And what I’m hearing after 40, your estrogen, a woman’s estrogen is going down, and it’ll decline for 15 years. So correct me if I’m wrong, men listening, I’m thinking that what a woman with declining estrogen needs is more nurturing more giving more things that make her feel good. And if you do that your relationship will be better if you’re in a heterosexual relationship. Well, let

John Gray
me just say that men have to learn that. And women have to learn that because women who’ve gone through menopause, don’t give themselves permission to ask for help. Oh, well said, Yes. They’ve they’ve had life experiences, which increases confidence, I can do it myself. And if you haven’t been getting the support you needed in relationships with men before, it just becomes more challenging. Because you’ve got this whole history of men forget to do things men change, men lose motivation, I end up doing more what I want to do man in my life, it’s like having another child, I’m done with that, you know, right. It’s just to see if the same things apply to menopause just need to be we have to become more expert at finding our balance, because our hormones aren’t really controlling that. They’re not the change of hormones isn’t changing us so much. What I’m saying is it when a woman’s estrogen goes up, she will typically become more emotional and ask for more. Yeah, if she learns how to ask, then they’ll have a happier relationship. As opposed to I need more I’m not getting it comes across as complaining. So in those five days before ovulation where women will be most unhappy, they’ll be most complaining if they don’t have someone they trust.

Dr. Mindy
Yes. So this is where I think we can start saving marriages. Because the other thing we know about declining estrogen is it makes you more insulin resistant, which is not fair for women, because now she’s holding on to wait more, her energy goes down, she’s feeling and what I’m hearing from you is she’s feeling unheard. So it’s not the man’s job,

John Gray
if she doesn’t know what she can get out of a man. First, she has to know how to get it. Otherwise, she thinks I can’t get it. And second, she has to be in touch with what she needs from a man. Because if she’s already very independent, what do I need a man for unless you have a higher level of knowledge that says the major super estrogen production is what women get out of therapy, which is they feel safe, to express what’s inside encouragement to get in touch with their feelings. And they don’t know why. But I always feel better afterwards. And that’s because when you are in touch with your need to talk, and then when you’re talking evokes emotion, now you’re producing huge amounts of estrogen, you’ll feel a little extra surgeon just complaining. But that’s one of those behaviors that ends up feeling that ends up giving you some fulfillment for a moment, and then you go back to a worse situation. Just like with men we know we’ve tested this biologically, is that when men go into porn, they’ll get a surge of testosterone, but then afterwards, they go back to their baseline and but over time now we have to take two different studies. We know now that you can’t even get a control group of a man who doesn’t do porn. Okay, what wow that’s where they do the studies is on you know college right? Yeah. Oh, okay. Can’t find somebody who doesn’t do porn. So they we don’t have a control group for it. Crazy is quite quite crazy. And but here I am. I’ve been teaching this 50 years I predicted 20 years ago that with the availability of porn, what you’ll see is males testosterone levels will go down. And they now for all ages, the average male goes down 1% every year so your 20 year old is kind of gonna go down 1% Every year your 35 year old you’re gonna go down 1% every year. The even back 20 years ago we first started look In these numbers, a 50 year old man had half the testosterone he had as a young man. And mine were not that and mine have, basically, since I started testing them are 50% higher than when I was a young man. So there’s we don’t, because we, I tell you what I’m doing, I’m doing and consciously doing things to keep my testosterone up. There’s nothing, there’s nothing. Okay? It’s, I work hard, I’m happy on my own. And I’m monogamous. And my relationship is the most important thing in my life. But I can’t give to that relationship. If I don’t also take the time I need from myself, which is I’m a hard worker, my virtue is to make a difference in the world. And part of that is because I’m very successful and making a difference. I mean, you don’t under underestimated those books behind me. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
no, no, we don’t know, we know all about how impactful there

John Gray
is, you know, sometimes I’d be in a bad mood. That means my testosterone is down. That means I encountered too much stress during the day. Stress for man is moments where you don’t feel completely in control of making a positive influence in the world. Okay? If there’s something I can’t I, if I feel like I’m trying to solve somebody’s problem, and this is when I was younger, I have counseling clients, and I couldn’t solve their problem I get really, that’d be hugely stressful for me, because I give them advice. And they go, yes, but yes, but Oh, yeah. Eventually, what I learned is I never give advice unless somebody is they’re somewhat imbalanced with their hormones. It doesn’t matter how good your advice is. If somebody is stressed, there’s always going to be yes, but yes, but and I know for many people, even as I’m talking that people are right now stress. Yes, but yes. Depending on

Dr. Mindy
taking their hormones that takes their hormones. Yeah, always stress, oh my gosh, hormones.

John Gray
And yes, and, and I’m a big Yes, and I can disagree and everything, but I’ll find something positive and look at it. And that’s why I have so many different ways of solving problems, all these people will come to me with their problems. But the first thing if it’s a woman, what, uh, I always make sure that I’m able to validate what she says. Now, nobody knows how to validate this was a big word. In the 90s, were started coming out. And the reason a lot of this stuff started coming out in the 90s, even in the 80s, it was, you don’t bring me flowers anymore, was a big theme of romance was a big deal. And then women gave up on romance. And then the next thing they could find was the communication. If you actually if you feel communicate, if you have good communication, your estrogen levels will shoot up. If you have romance, they go even higher. So that’s why women have more romantic feelings at ovulation, if they feel safe. See, safety is oxytocin. And all those studies came out in the 2000s. I was talking about 1900s. But that they, they finally they did the research on it. And they found that stress levels go down when oxytocin goes up, but actually stress levels don’t go down and men with oxytocin.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, that’s you talked about that in the book. And nobody will talk about that, okay, because

John Gray
they want to make, they want to see that we’re all the same. So as you point out, they don’t do a lot of research on women and all these things. But what they found out is that if you produce oxytocin stress levels go down. But as we, as you say, in your videos, it is true second, as well. They’re not testing what time of the month is oxytocin make their stress levels go down? Because oxytocin doesn’t cause progesterone to go up. So yes, it’s oxytocin helps your estrogen, a little oxytocin is fine, but too much oxytocin. Too much safety does not promote the production of progesterone. And there’s research showing that when you make oxytocin, you’re using up the fuel that would make your progesterone. So

Dr. Mindy
what do you need for progesterone? This is this is golden,

John Gray
mutual fulfillment. Okay, your your so there’s oxytocin is produced primarily, a strong producer of oxytocin is non physical touch, a non sexual touch. So if you can let someone touch you and be with you, like a massage, for example, is a super oxytocin producer, between a husband and wife. Regular hugs, nonsexual hugs. You know, my wife complained the beginning she says, the only time you touch me is when you want sex. And I thought, What’s wrong with that? And then I read a book on hugs. So I became now a big hug teacher, because hugs produce a lot of oxytocin. And so when you’re feeling safe, then you can feel I can depend on you, and then you feel your needs. So it’s really getting in touch with your needs, trusting you’re going to get what you need to feel good, produces estrogen. That’s why overeating is you’re hungry, as long as you’re feeling so hungry. As long as the foods filling you up. It’s producing estrogen and therefore it your brain goes eat more Food, I’ll get more estrogen and that will produce more fat right also produces more estrogen.

Dr. Mindy
Right? Oh my gosh the cycle. So okay, so go back to the progesterone.

John Gray
That is Dr. Mindy ELLs to learn how to do intermittent fasting and fasting. It’s very, very important for women, it’s the most important thing.

Dr. Mindy
Thank you and I was gonna say add to your testosterone list. I hope your intermittent fasting and or a 24 hour fast. They’ve shown increases a man’s testosterone by 2,000%

John Gray
Absolutely, absolutely. What was the last thing you said? Progesterone because

Dr. Mindy
this is a big testosterone? No. Yeah, it increases testosterone. But I want to go back to fulfillment. What does that mean? Like if I’m pmse? Or and I want

John Gray
to go back to what you just said. I want to underline that when a man fast for how long? Is it testosterone? Yeah, 20 Because you have to fast.

Dr. Mindy
24 hours, 24 hours, it goes up 2,000% 13 hours, it goes up 13 100%. So each hour you keep going, you’re getting men are getting more and more testosterone.

John Gray
That’s a great. I’m a major faster. That’s also why 50% more testosterone.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, there you go.

John Gray
I love it, you’re asked me how I get that is I intermittent fast, I only eat one meal a day. I do drink a lot. I tease I have coffee in the morning, and I drink teas throughout the day. And then I have a meal. And that’s it. And I will do a three day fast at least every month, I’ll do a look every year I do a 30 day fast. Okay. It’s very important. If you do long, fast, you have to exercise a lot. You know, people think, oh, I should rest? No, yeah, you need to you need to produce energy in your body, you need to keep using that fat that you’re burning off. So that’s my 30 day. And when I do the further, I do silence for 30 days, I put on a mask I never see light the whole time. And this is real folks. It’s what your brain and a lot of people who are blind will tell you this happens for them is that you can actually see with another part of your brain, you can see the lines of the furniture so I can walk through the house without having to go from one side to the other. And I can see the line of the door. It’s like little white light of the table. I can see the white light. It’s all there my body, my mind. Remember it, maybe it’s remembering or maybe it’s feeling just the frequencies and turning it into light with amazing

Dr. Mindy
things. Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?

John Gray
I’m 70 Yeah, you do not look 70? Well, people say that to me. Now my wife died three, four years ago, but I have a new partner. Of course, I’m still in the newness part of the relationship, which is definitely free testosterone. But suddenly, I had had that before. And it’s just compounded to another level. See, there’s something not everybody wants to hear about sex. I’ll talk about that for just a moment. You can turn it off. But basically, too much sex lowers your testosterone, not enough sex lowers your testosterone. Everything is finding the right balance. Just as as women get older, I’ll just throw this in as well with menopause, your hormone levels will go down but your adrenal gland can still make the right hormones for you to be a healthy happy sexually active woman. Yeah, I know women in their late 70s. Maybe beyond that. But I know one woman 78 years old her her boyfriend is seven years old. He’s one of my friends. They have a lot of sex, and they pretend to do something, right. Yeah, well, to have a lot of sex. You have to be doing a different kind of sex for a man as you as you grow older and you’re more balanced and your testosterone estrogen, you’re free from addiction. And then you can learn how to have orgasms without ejaculating. So I have lots of sex, but I have orgasms without ejaculating as a younger man, I really couldn’t do it. Didn’t have somebody teach me how to do it. Now I need a

Dr. Mindy
book on that book on that. That’s your next book.

John Gray
I have the beginning book, which is the course on my website. But then and that’s for the basics. But see, I couldn’t teach the advanced things because people think you’re too weird. But or they can’t do it. You really just need an instruction. The the science I wanted to bring up in terms of men’s testosterone and also women’s estrogen. These are two things the science only shows the testosterone side but I’ll give you the my lifetime experience helping couples who lose interest in sex, okay, which is very, very common. One of the biggest estrogen producers for a woman is the anticipation of sex, particularly during the five days towards ovulation, of course. And now the brain is associated with that. That is a younger person, you get automatic hormones that say estrogen is going up and if I feel safe, I feel strong sex desire. Once your your you go through menopause, you’re not going to get that I have strong sexual desire unless sex itself is something that promotes high estrogen for you. So this is I mean, it’s a pacing you know, we’re talking about going from zero to 100 here and there’s So much. Above is. The research now shows scientifically, I could even talk about this. You know, for example, masturbation, everybody’s always good for you. It’s fine to do, why not do that and have more sex and you’ll be happier and so forth? Well, the research shows that if you ejaculate on Saturday, say with your partner, and you don’t have sex, or at least the man does not ejaculating for six days, on the seventh day, his testosterone will increase 50%.

Dr. Mindy
Oh, so he shouldn’t masturbate? Off? Definitely not. What What about women? And just before we did,

John Gray
before we go so far, I love your questions. But let me just finish that one point. Yeah, please, if you if you are Jackie, late, once in the week, if you’re a man on the same day, so at least we have six days, seven days in between. On the seventh day, your testosterone levels go up. 50% consistently, now, crazy. So you know, you get married, and you get the flush of new love. Of course, you have more sex because you have more dopamine because there’s newness, but then you settle down, you don’t have that spark. And all you have to do is have sex twice a week, which everybody tries to do to be acceptable by everybody else. That means your testosterone levels. If you look at the norm, the norm in America until SEC stops is twice a week. You know, people used to ask me how much sex Do you have? As you know, I wrote a book on sex once a week. Oh, not enough. I said, why go for quality, not quantity. I’m very in tune with what my body needs. And so I know how I felt basically, that I feel and how would I feel if I went with that? It’s kind of like intermittent fasting when it comes to sex.

Dr. Mindy
And what about women? What about women is the same thing.

John Gray
Nobody’s done the research on this. And so we keep in mind the sexual practices as they are today, with a lot of masturbation going on. Everybody’s going down, down down if you’re masculine, okay. And the average 50 year old man has half the testosterone a young man, I’m 70 it’s 50% Higher every day, I’m ready for sex and almost do every day twice a day because I’m slightly retired some more time. If I was raising kids, I don’t have time for that. So now I want to know another thing that happens is hard for men not to masturbate because they’re addicted to it’s cocaine. Basically, the dopamine rush you get from masturbation is much higher than being with a woman. You see when you make are with a stranger, it’s higher. It’s a bit of fantasy. It’s the highest and but with a woman, see if she’s having if she’s having sex with us, because she appreciates you. She likes you. There’s some love there. There’s there’s physical connection, there’s female energy. So to have sex with a woman means your estrogen levels are going to go higher than with a stranger. That estrogen going higher, keeps your dopamine and your testosterone from going off the chart. See, whenever

Dr. Mindy
you’re a woman, this is in a woman just so we’re clear on for now. Oh, it’s an Amanda.

John Gray
Okay, then we’ll get to women. So one, once the if a man makes love, that means I love you. You’re special to me and you turn me on not some fantasy. Not I watched a fantasy and I want to go have sex with my wife. No, it’s sheer her body raises my testosterone and my estrogen, then if we climax together are at different times. But we both climax, the research on that there’s research on that, compared to masturbation compared to a prostitute or compared to fantasy. It’s all the same world. The research on that is when a man actually makes love, he knows the person they love him. They like him. They have a history together. That’s a married couple. They find that when married couples have sex. There’s a hormone that gets produced in a man’s body that doesn’t get produced at other times. And that hormone is prolactin. That prolactin is in a woman’s body is associated with with breastfeeding and so forth. Well, for a man when prolactin is produced, it inhibits his desire for sex.

Dr. Mindy
Oh, that’s that’s doesn’t sound like it helps the marriage.

John Gray
Well, it’s actually inhibits his desire for sex for six days.

Dr. Mindy
Biologically perfect. So you can either logically

John Gray
perfect so see men are addicted to sex and a single man should be interested in sex, it would cause evolutionary wise, if you haven’t found a woman who loves you, you should keep looking. And it’s the sex drive that causes men to keep looking. But when you want you found the right person who loves you. Your body then produces prolactin and inhibits lust from searching for one woman after another to another. And as soon as you start masturbating as your male, you’re increasing your addiction to sex as opposed to having a natural desire for sex once a week.

Dr. Mindy
So if you want to keep your man then you need to make sure that you have you make love once a week, so

John Gray
products because they also found that if you go set up six days seven days well ejaculating and and don’t have sex on the seventh or eighth day that your testosterone never goes up 50% until you go 60s and crazy and you have sex have sex, regular sex is very important. It doesn’t have to be spectacular sex, it needs to be some form of intimacy, physical, because that that’s always going to go away. It’s okay, everything moves go in waves. But there needs to be that physical special intimacy with someone that you love and you’re naked, in a sense, you’re naked. And what allows you to be naked in the bedroom in a healthy relationship is you can be naked in your mind and in your heart, and then in your body. And the most important thing for women’s estrogen is to be naked in your emotions. And that’s what I was getting at before. They all traditional things that produce estrogen like nurturing and cleaning your house, taking care of your children, children is different because they’re producing estrogen in you. But even still, if you’re working all the time, there’s just so much pressure to do nurturing things, that is not enough time, it produces testosterone. But there’s something which is the superpower technique, to raise your estrogen, which is to be completely naked in your mind and heart to someone who loves you. That is so true. There’s an art to doing that. Because usually when women don’t have emotional intelligence, and realize that their emotions are something that is within them, and they can change those to positive, but they can depend on their partner to change those emotions, but not by having him change his behavior, or change anything about him. But to get him to listen and understand and hear you, which is what a therapist does. But your husband is not a therapist, I became a champion. I’m a therapist, I get paid for this. I’ve learned to do it, my livelihood is based on it. So I gotta apply that to my wife and have an amazingly orgasmic wife, because that high estrogen has to occur. And what’s so interesting that separates women from men and women from animals is that women only only can be sexually aroused at the time. They can be sexually aroused at any time. If they’re in a safe environment, enough estrogen or progesterone is being produced in her body, animals can do that, you see, they just had that cycle has not, they can think different things that doesn’t matter their body, when it’s when they’re ovulating, then they want to have sex. Well, if a woman has high estrogen, just double her estrogen on a date, and she wants to have sex at anytime of the month, even on her period. If

Dr. Mindy
you don’t, and you’re you double her estrogen by letting her like love on you, showing her how much you care for her nurturing her.

John Gray
And we’re not going to that’s a whole nother talk, you know, if you want to have the back how to do all of that. But we’re just understanding the hormones. Now, the necessity for women being able to feel safe to express how they feel. Now, just it doesn’t mean she can just say whatever she’s thinking and feeling. She has to do it appropriately. So he doesn’t feel blamed, if he feels blamed, that he will go into low testosterone, his estrogen will go up, he’ll become defensive, he’ll go into fight or flight. That’s why women say always wants to solve the problem or argue with me what he wants to try to build his testosterone back up. Once men learn that by saying nothing but asking questions, you’re actually helping her feel better, you don’t have to give a solution to help her feel better.

Dr. Mindy
So you don’t so ask her questions. Don’t give her the solution.

John Gray
Three questions or talk. It’s not just let her talk. You can destroy relationships. If a woman just starts blaming you, okay, is testosterone will go down down. It’s literally he gets a bruise and he shuts down. It’s just, it’s validating what she’s saying. And it’s hard in the beginning of training, I can do it because I’m a trained person here. I know that if I can, if I can not react in a negative way when my wife’s upset and complaining about me. And there weren’t that many complaints either. But when she was complaining about me to not react with an excuse, but to say help me understand that better. Tell me more. And what else? Those are questions we ask as therapists, we don’t jump in with solutions, we give women a chance to talk. And if you validate their emotions, this is really key. If you can validate her emotions, her stress level dramatically goes down. If you don’t validate her emotions, and you just listen to whatever she’s saying and agree with her. That can be somewhat validating. But the reality is, if a woman is complaining about a man, it’s hard for her to him to agree that she is thinking clearly.

Dr. Mindy
Right? Not gonna be like, How can I help you fight back,

John Gray
he’s going to defend himself because unless he shows up as successful and making her happy, his testosterone will go down. And now she’s just pointing out you didn’t do this. You didn’t do this. How can I trust you? Why can’t you do this? You shouldn’t say Secondly, all the little pet peeves would be called complaining or nagging. Okay? All of those things are knocking his testosterone down, down, down. So we need to have technology that’s my new book, which is how to help men keep their testosterone up. A woman can and help that happen. And a man can help keep her estrogen up, he can do that. And listening is one of the key factors, Romans puts it over the top. If you just do romantic things, think of a woman’s estrogen having stages of going higher and higher. If she’s at the lowest stage, anything you say, which is romantic, it means nothing. Normal stage helpful, things start to become romantic. And then you do something a little special out of the ordinary estrogen goes even higher romance takes you from feeling good, feeling really higher. But listening can take you to feeling really good. So that then almost anything you do as a man is somewhat romantic.

Dr. Mindy
You know, this is golden.

John Gray
I didn’t even know that until my daughter, Lauren, who teaches a class to women only on all these factors, how to bring out the best in a man. And so we’re writing, writing this course online hasn’t come out. But this understanding men, that’s what it’s called. And you have to understand man’s cave, and pull away how to get him to come back without going in his cave. That’s one aspect of it. And so Lauren says, Yes, when I do this, he comes out of the cave, and he’s always romantic. And I said to her, well, he is because I’m not always romantic. When I come out of the cave, I’m just normal. And what does he do? He says, oh, he’ll just go and start cleaning the kitchen or, or empty the trash. And I said, That’s romantic. Of course. That’s romantic. Oh, yeah. No, it’s super clean the kitchen. A woman is stressed. And he does those things. She’ll say, well, he shouldn’t do those things. I did this for him. See the difference there? Yeah, totally romantic. When she’s already feeling I’m getting the emotional support at a certain level and then it becomes more romantic. Yeah. And it’s also can be romantic in the beginning of its novel and different so that he occasionally does it ah, routine to do it. It’s no longer anything less her estrogen levels are in a healthy place, then whatever he does, is she special, she gets to feel the love between them. It’s amazing once we understand the whole power of understanding each other’s hormones and how to keep it up.

Dr. Mindy
So before we leave this conversation, I do want to just go back to so what I hear with a man if he wants to to get his testosterone up, you don’t have sex for a week. But what about a woman? What if she wants to what if she wants to improve her libido? What What can she do or they say how women

John Gray
ruin your libido? Every time I say that, again? How men ruin your libido. Okay, how do they ruin our libido? Historically, women have a higher libido than men. Just let you know that okay, particularly five days before ovulation, they had the highest libido historically. That’s why in the middle of clitoris is men were afraid their wives would go off and have sex if he couldn’t perform well enough. So if he loses interest in her losing interest in her, her interest in him will go away. Her estrogen levels go down, her interests will go away. But the third thing is too much sex. Because what happens when he ejaculates you know, as a woman, he always pulls away, there’s always this detachment you feel he turns over the other side. So now basically, his testosterone suddenly went way down. You experienced an attachment, an orgasm, his was way up your estrogens way up. It’s a time where you connect the most you you sort of cling you feel so much love, and then he takes it away. Yeah, that’s a conditioned response that says if I go to high estrogen, I lose him. These are biological responses that go on, we call it conditioning and psychology. So having sex with him is always going to mean he’ll go away. And that’s a conditioning that slowly keeps you from opening up when women say I can’t trust you. It’s because men will pull their love away. And it’s painful when you attach and somebody pulls away. So it’s a gradual experience in your body of every time I open up to him, he pulls away and several days, he’s not as much emotionally available to me. It’s only when he wants sex, that he’s open to me. So part of me feels it’s like a losing battle. But you can recondition. That’s called conditioning. And then there’s something called reconditioning. If every week he comes back with 50%, higher testosterone, it tells your body he will always come back. So it reconditioned you to always feel safe having sex because he will pull away but he comes back with more is like he leaves but he always comes back with more for me. But if he leaves and he doesn’t come back for more for you, it slowly declines over time. She can’t anticipate going to that high level. Because his test she raises her estrogen.

Dr. Mindy
So So bottom line, couples need to heterosexual couples need to have sex once a week, at least.

John Gray
And they need to love each other outside the bedroom. And there’s a lot of skills to that. It’s a whole new way of having relationships today. Yeah, it used to be you didn’t have to see your husband that much. If you were hungry and you couldn’t get a job. You didn’t have education, your husband went out in the world brought home food for you and the children. You needed that you really needed that. So you got a lot of love for him.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And what about the what about the man that’s married to the high powered woman whose type A she comes home? He needs to nurture her give to her? Well, so this is because, you know, I think there’s a lot of women in that are in the workplace, their career driven, and it’s affecting their relationships because they are doing so much testosterone activities during the day. What can a man do to support her when she comes home at night to bring her estrogen back up? Or what can she do to reboot that estrogen,

John Gray
that’s called a relationship. And that’s called being responsible for herself, and then using her partner for extra, I think of men as dessert. If you can get your estrogen up to a normal level, then a man is going to be very willing to do the things I suggest. Prior to that there’s less motivation in him. So that’s we have to take personal responsibility. And nobody’s taught us personal responsibility to raise estrogen. So we talked about in the beginning is what there’s two major things in the book, you know, I have all these big lists and all kinds of

Dr. Mindy
the lists, the lists are amazing.

John Gray
My daughter says Dad, your list of the best, okay, so are really good a grade, because it really brings it into practical practicality. And not everybody’s the same. So you have options to look at. But the basic, short version of lists is anything that you’d like to do that you don’t have to do. Okay, just think about that. And Amos is something you have to do. You’re producing adrenaline use, and you’re a little stressed, then what you can even have a dialogue with yourself for a moment and just say, alright, I’m in my, my stress zone. This is self awareness. I’m in my stress zone, I’m feeling I have to do this. And I do have to do this. However, why am I doing this, I’m doing this because it particularly if it’s in my family, we have food on the table, so that my children will be get their education they want. So that brings you back in your awareness of why you’re doing what you have to do. And then you say, therefore, it’s an if then it’s therefore, I want to do this for my children. So I want to do this for my country. I wanted to you bring it into what you’re wanting. And that softens it. Because when you’re doing what you want to do, you’re on your male and female side. Okay, so if your female side yeah, that’s a simple thing. It’s not the big thing. But I just wanted to mention that one.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. So if I come home from work, and I want to sit on the couch and watch Netflix and drink a glass of wine, will that bring my testosterone or my estrogen up?

John Gray
That will bring your estrogen up? For sure, no question about, but only so far. The thing that brings it up higher is relationship to a person who cares about you, and using them, to see you to hear you just like you use the mirror. When you wake up in the morning, you comb your hair, and you put on your makeup, and you you know, use your people in your life that your mirror is using your mirror to see yourself, okay, now what communication, there’s four kinds of communication real quick, wants to solve problems, but another just to lower your stress. And for women talking as a way of lowering their stress. And it’s more effective, if they’re, what they’re talking about brings them greater awareness in terms of their emotions, it’s being in touch with your emotions, that it really raises your estrogen. Just talking and being heard with somebody who agrees with you will produce oxytocin, you will feel safe, and some stress will go down. But you’re not really bumping your estrogen up a lot. Because often, women get into these groups where they’re complaining about men. And everybody’s agreeing with everybody, you’re going to produce some estrogen, you’re mainly producing more oxytocin and you’ll feel I depend on that oxytocin, so you get some estrogen. But right afterwards, it’s gone. And you’re because you’re feeling like a victim. You’ve just agreed, I’m a victim, okay, I’m agreed on power. Agreed. So, if you do something else, so you can talk about a complaint you have in life and something bad happened. It’s important if you’re feeling it, to talk about it, but then to validate it is to not necessarily agree with it, but to agree with the emotion it produces. The world is not a terrible place. The world is a wonderful place, and it’s full of hope. But when we just focus on our victim, this we tend to go into hopelessness and hopelessness suppresses estrogen. See, estrogen goes up when I hope I can I can have I can have I deserve to have I will have it’s all part of hope. And when, when so you’re in a relationship with a man you don’t know why not things. You think if he was a woman and all the nice things I do for him, he’d be so nice to me, but you don’t realize that what men need is different from a women Nice. So that’s

Dr. Mindy
right. That’s a whole nother thing. And then,

John Gray
but sticking with what we were just talking about, I went over there I even forgot we’re just talking about which is emotional vulnerability for women is one of those powerful ways doing what you love to do nurturing activities, doing what you’d like to do, learning new things. See when you’re learning new things, you’re depending on things that will increase your your happiness and your well being seeing a doctor doing going to somebody for advice so that they’ll help you with something you can do for yourself. Because once you can do it for yourself. You’re now making you’re not making a lot of estrogen so taking classes and taking classes in dance is is a big for some women massive estrogen levels, the singing classes, anything which is personally expressive, being personal about things for some women, it’s wearing outfits is a big estrogen producer. For us crazy. Putting on makeup, by the way is a huge estrogen producer and makes anybody puts on a mask feel safe. wearing dark glasses as estrogen producer. It’s amazing all the little things in life that we’re drawn to, particularly for women, why you’ll see more women looking at the cosmetics counter than men, okay, because it’s a mask that you put on that helps protect you you feel safe, which then allows you to open up to look at, okay, I can depend on other things to make me happy, as well as my dark glasses and my makeup and so forth. And so that’s a dynamic of all producing estrogen. And that’s good estrogen. 10 times more estrogen, if I can just poetically say it is what women get out of therapy. And therapy is just a good therapy. It’s just somebody validating your emotions. So I know the whole therapy world, some people go to therapy and their lives never change. There’s whole books written about this. And they often say only the first six sessions produce change. And after that, it just stay stuck. And that’s because the therapist is getting to know you and not ready to give you solutions. To say giving solutions is not giving women solutions is not going to lower their stress levels, it just increases what they can do to solve the problem, which is testosterone. And not that you don’t need that. But you need first to open up your female side, which is talking about the problems in your life, the things that are making you uncomfortable, things that are stressing you out things that are pressuring you, things that make you upset. Once you talk a little bit about that, then you have to bring it to the emotions, and most therapists don’t do that they just let you talk, if you’re stressed is because you’re in your head, and you’re not in your emotions, emotions produce estrogen, they’re your most powerful happiness is an emotion producing estrogen. Love is emotion producing estrogen. Anger is an emotion producing estrogen. You just don’t want to get addicted to the negative emotions. But often, if you feel your negative emotions, it will lead you to your positive emotions. And that’s called Emotional Intelligence. It’s hard to go from feeling angry and frustrated to feeling I’m so happy and grateful. Although it’s a good practice to do, but there’s actually a whole journey you can go through to make it very efficient. And that’s called Emotional intelligence. And all my books explain the levels of emotion. If ever you’re frustrated, for example, you’re only frustrated because you had an expectation that wasn’t met. That means you’re disappointed. If you’re anybody who’s angry, they’re also afraid you if you’re not afraid to feeling insecure, then what do you have to fight for? You know, just Okay, I’ll take some time to understand your point of view. But if somebody’s angry, a man’s angry, and you said, Well, you know, You’re just afraid I’m not just afraid. Are you kidding? That’s because we don’t have emotional intelligence to realize that you can’t have one negative emotion without all these others. And if you see, basically four, it’s simple. It’s trust. And if you stay in your prefrontal cortex, it’s huge. Share your husband and put it practice called bienenstock. Oh, honey, I’m so happy to see you. So what is oh, I just want to talk about my day for 10 minutes. You don’t have to say anything. And you’ll see I’ll feel better just being able to talk about it. Okay, what do you want me to do? Nothing. Just look at me, nod your head. That’s the beginning stage. Don’t say anything, don’t fix anything. Don’t solve anything. And trust that I’m going to feel better just doing this. And I don’t need any help on that particular thing. I need your help. Just go I want to talk about. So that’s kind of the way you’d frame the conversation. And that’s called a Venus talk only 10 minutes, I promise you. Oh, okay, I can do that.

Then you started out by looking at okay, today, what was frustrating for me, and you talk about that there was so much traffic today, or I got there and they had even done the work and I had to pick up the slack. Try to keep it short. That’s what’s frustrating you. What are you disappointed about? Well, most women never get to the disappointment. They’ll just stay at the level of blame and frustration. Oh, it’s so disappointing. Because, you know, I when I started this job, everybody was supportive of me. And now it’s like, I’m so competent, I do everything and now I can’t relax. It’s like, everybody looks to me for everything. So I said, just that’s a disappointment, that tone of disappointment. You know, it’s not really the ideal setting for me right now. Then you go to your concerns and worries, and I’m concerned, this is gonna get worse. You know, I’m concerned that I’m going to burn out, I’ve got to change another job. I always tend to do this I give more than I get and then I burn out. I don’t want to be there. And then the last one is the best one with your husband. And I’m so I feel so embarrassed. That it’s really me. It’s me who takes on all these projects, and I’m aware blaming everybody else. Or it could be I’m so embarrassed because I got a blurted out and got upset with so and so I don’t want to do that. You know, whatever’s embarrassing. Embarrassment is pure vulnerability. And you’ll see people’s face gets a little red when they’re embarrassed because the blood flow goes to the brain. It’s the most powerful positive emotion to produce estrogen is Fairest. But you have to have all of them. You see, they’re all there. That’s called Emotional intelligence. And then what’s behind those emotions is your passion and your Passion is what do you want. So then you just think, you know, a perfect world, I wish this, I want this, I hope this says a little positive what I want, or what I would like, or what I wish this is going into what are your expectations, hopes, whatever just a little bit of what I wish is or what I want is, then you took about seven minutes to do that. Now you’ve got the last few minutes to say what I’m grateful for, what I’m happy about, and what I what I’m what I’m hopeful for. And what I’m proud of, those are your four positive emotions that are balanced of those negative emotions. And you can do this and like, you can learn to do it in two or three minutes. But with your partner, you want to take at least 10 minutes, because every time he hears an emotion and doesn’t try to push it down, he doesn’t push it down. He see every time and solving your problem when you’re upset. He’s pushing down your emotions. He’s saying, You don’t need to feel that way. I’ll do this for you or your look, you’re overreacting to this situation. You just say, you know, honey, if he’s a guy who said You’re overreacting, I just need 10 minutes to overreact. And the old days they say I just need to vent my feelings. And and that if you’re with somebody venting your feelings, who’s whatever you say is what you feel not necessarily an emotion, you’re just expressing. I feel like nobody likes me at work, or it’s too hard work and I’m not getting paid enough. That’s expressing your feelings. There’s no There’s estrogen being produced. But the problem doesn’t go away. Your stress doesn’t go down so much. Right? Right. Yeah, you get the validation, particularly with a man now, see, a man can’t validate the way you’re thinking about a situation because you think about situations in a different way. Like if you’re saying Oh, my, my, my stockings tore, you know, he has no experience of that. Right? Or my shoes, or these high heeled shoes are driving me crazy. You know, he has no experience of that. The reality is he looks through life through a different set of glasses, okay? cause him to be stressed, are a bit different from you, particularly, if you’re overwhelmed, he’s gonna be thinking, cool it you know, it’s not so important. Just, you know, some men will take let’s just watch TV, or what I did in the beginning of marriage was why don’t we just go have sex and forget all our problems. And can forget, women need to remember and share. And if you remember, and then look at what emotion that causes inside just briefly just become emotionally intelligent, what’s going on inside of me, check in. And I just want to check in and share it with you now teach men to do this, but to do it alone.

If you’re independent, you’re always making testosterone. And if you’re really upset, first do something that will raise your testosterone up, which, you know, I can go drive my car, I can meditate and go play tennis. I can go jog and lift weights anything fast. It’s something I can fast for sure. That’s a great one, my testosterone goes up, then I take time to do emotional process and say, Okay, what was I feeling? It’s sort of in past time, what was I angry about? Or what was I feeling hurt about what was I scared of, and you try to bring those emotions up to the prefrontal cortex emotions, which are frustration, disappointment, concern, and embarrassment, powerful emotions, and then come back, just get in the habit of, you know, everybody says, Take a journal and write what you’re grateful for. It’s such an important thing to do, but often not the whole story, you got to embrace the negative, then you move to the positive. And that’s what our brains designed to do. Their prefrontal cortex, Lauren, our human self, not our conditioned self, our instinctive self, but the human part of us is the prefrontal cortex is the only part of us is different from an animal primarily. And the left side is when you’re optimistic and the right side is when you’re pessimistic. Okay, so pessimistic is looking at danger. And that can be addictive. Ironically, looking at the positive is not addictive. There’s always a bias towards for survival. To look at the negative anytime you’re under stress, you go to the negative and when you go to the negative, becomes addictive. And you actually grow neural pathways so that anytime there’s any discontent inside you go right to the problems out there, rather than and you can’t get out of feeling unhappy unless you change the outer world. What we want to do is when you’re unhappy you want you can change that a robot first change yourself to feel good, recognize what the problems are, and then solve them. So that’s your, your optimistic side and your pessimistic side. You want to exercise both. So then you can move through life balancing your hormones that way by seeing yeah, there’s problems and yes, it’s not as bad as I think and what we can do about it.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, so Okay, one last thing though. I want to go back to progesterone because she’s my favorite hormone. And I lost her in the for mi 40. So what I heard you say is any activity that’s going to make you fulfilled is going to bring up a woman’s progesterone and there’s a

John Gray
little difference, okay. Yes. So that is any activity that is fulfilling where you’re depending on something to support you. That’s more estrogen progesterone is when it’s reciprocal, like playing cards was shown to me Reading, reading a book reading books and discussing it together, talking about problems at the workplace together with somebody who relates to you. So it’s a mutual admiration. It’s like a collaboration. When you’re interacting with someone in a non testosterone producing way you’re making progesterone. Ironically, the very chemical that your body your adrenal gland makes is progesterone. And the way your body makes testosterone is to use you to convert your progesterone and testosterone. So the more you’re in your testosterone mode, the less progesterone you make, that’s why we have social rituals, eating together conversations together, events together, talking together. You know, I was, I remember, even in a social repressive country I was in and Saudi Arabia, and that is hot there. So at night, they go the restaurants and they’re all under the stars, I was at a restaurant where there were 1000, people were there, at tables under the stars, and that one family had their cell phone on. So that was one of the ways they handled, they’re happy, and they’re all looked happy. Not that there had this perfect lives or anything. But they created these social situations. And the women were talking to the women and they were talking to the men, as long as that’s what they were no cell phones, and they all have cell phones. Now go to an American restaurant, you’ll see everybody looking at their cell phones, it’s like crazy. We’re not relating to each other, we’re losing our relatedness. We’re addicted to the electronics and social media and all those things. And all of those addictions inhibit natural hormone production, they all in the same category, you just have to minimize them. And you get back to nature and natural things. Easy going, no pressure, that’s your primary estrogen producers. And for men, pressure is good sometimes and then non pressure, they need to be challenged stress. And that to be challenged, overcome is progesterone produced testosterone, it goes up for that. But if you don’t have enough confidence, meaning you don’t know what’s gonna happen, you think maybe you’re gonna fail, all that stuff happens, then what happens is cortisol goes up, and for a man has testosterone goes down. And for a woman, when cortisol goes up, her testosterone goes up to whatever extent she can make it and her estrogen goes down. Crazy, amazing, amazing. And how perfect it is, when you can have you can share what’s inside, particularly with men who typically women think half the world doesn’t understand me, because the other half of the world because they’re a woman does understand you and they agree with you, as a man to teach validation. How I can validate with my wife, when I don’t fully relate to everything she’s experiencing is by simply going saying statements like, that must be so frustrating. I can always relate to the emotion of frustration. And actually, men become more aware of their own personal feelings and emotions by listening to a woman be in touch with her emotions. And just by being there for her, his testosterone goes up, he doesn’t need to talk to somebody else about his emotions. If he has a woman, he has those emotions, and he can listen to her. So what I want as a man is to be able to stay in my male side, this is I kept my testosterone of all those, you know, other guys is going down. The sex thing was a big part of it. My wife’s appreciation. For me a big part of it, being successful is a big part of it. But I know a lot of successful men who have very low testosterone, okay, they actually they have high testosterone at work, and they come home and they crash, you know, yeah, you have to have success in your relationship. And anybody who comes to Me in counseling has a problem in relationship first that validate that I point out to them, how they’re making their problem worse. And they just don’t know how they make it worse. That’s where we have to understand these new emotional needs that both men and women have. The man today needs emotional support, to motivate him to be the man he was in the beginning. Women need emotional support to bring forth the happy person she was in the beginning. And we can first start with ourselves, and then we can help each other out.

Dr. Mindy
Oh, this is this will change relationships. I know you know this, but I can’t wait to bring it to my community. So thank you so much for spending so much time with me. I do have one question that I ask all my guests. So I want to make sure that I finished with this. Do you have a gratitude practice? And if so what is it? And I’ll I’ll add another piece to that which is what what is one thing you’re grateful for?

John Gray
I’m grateful to your message to the world that men and women’s hormones are different and fasting is so important and when women can fast. It’s so so important. I just think more than ever in the world. We need cleansing we need the fasting besides the hormonal production that happens. It’s just so so important. We have these these toxins from our environment are called hormone disruptors. And that alone will cause your hormones to go out of balance. And one additional thing we didn’t say about the women are menopausal and beyond menopause. Once your ovaries stop making that estrogen, you don’t need as much estrogen. Keep that in mind. What you need is the right balance of estrogen and testosterone. That’s your kids tendon. See is the thing right over your testosterone side because it’s so easy to go there with, nobody’s gonna help me I’ll do it myself. And so if you’re married and you’re in a relationship, this get in a relationship if you’re not, because that’s your major estrogen supporter in life. It’s a major if that’s the one that can make it go so high through the romance, but person happens to the emotional fulfillment. And in there, there’s a little game. I know we’re going over time. I know I have a couple of minutes left before my next interview. Yeah, our client actually it’s called the this is something anybody can do for hormone balance, okay. It’s, it’s called genie in a bottle is between a man and a woman. Okay, see if you have a woman when the one of the big estrogen producers for women besides being able to share and feel validated, is the other one is being able to ask for help and get it. Very important. Now the way estrogen works, every act of love to support me has the same score as every big act of love or little act of love. It all has the same reaction to estrogen. I bring you 50 Roses, estrogen spars, bro, so beautiful, I bring you one rose, almost the same estrogen response.

Dr. Mindy
So save your money.

John Gray
It’s just become more efficient as men do lots of little things. Like I get four hugs a day as a religion. When before I leave, come home, before bed or after morning going coming, saying good night and somewhere else I do my other I get up in the morning I get my I don’t know why I’m forgetting this right now. When I come back, there’s there’s a hug. And when she goes to bed, there’s a hug and there’s always a hug somewhere in between. And during that one of those hugs, I always say some compliment about it. I love you so much. You’re so beautiful. I’m so lucky to be with you. My life is a dream because of you. You make everything wonderful for me. These a little nothings. But they all score as big as $1,000 Check. It’s on an estrogen level. Men don’t know that they think making money will make you happy. And if you’re hungry, the money will make you happy until you have plenty of food and then it does nothing. Okay, so the emotional needs have now become the most important thing and for women, lots of little acts of love score big. Now asking is paradoxically asking for something instead of him doing it automatically asking with full trust that he’s going to do it even produces more estrogen. So the practice asking so this is called Genie in a Bottle takes 10 minutes any man will do something. I just when you have a chance. I just need 10 minutes. Would you help me? Yes, I will. Okay, I’m I want to finish this show. That’s fine. Go ahead. Is not emergency but I need your help. And then go what do you need? Well, I want to play genie in the bottle and practice in the beginning once a week is enough for this, but it’s a powerful way to balance your hormones. So for 10 minutes, you already know the rules of it. He’s gonna say whatever your request is, your wish is my command and has to be something he can do in 10 minutes. So maybe you say Oh, would you clean up the kitchen is such a mess. Absolutely. I’ll do it right away. Happy to do it. Just like he’s like a maitre d of the best restaurant. Oh, Dr. Gray. You’re here again. We got your special table a big tipper. Are you flying first class? They all come at you on a long flight? Oh, is there anything you need? I’ll be happy to do it. This read this little buzzer I’ll be right there. You’re the maitre d. This game this is a great game great game, genie in the bottle. So you he can he can do this for 10 minutes. You say this is like I’m gonna play that role up. Whatever you ask them to get on it right away. Yes, ma’am. Happy to do it. So glad to do it. So now women, the most popular thing women do in their 10 minutes is they’ll often say, Well, I’d like you to give me a foot massage. And now that’s only one point. But each time you ask and he responds, it’s another point of estrogen. So you say Okay, first thing I’d like you to, oh, Genie, would you run to my room and get my lavender. He runs to the room and gets the lavender. He runs. That’s an extra point. He comes back with a lavender. He says Now I’d like you to take off my right shoe. Takes off the right shoe. Oh, happy to do that. Unless it’s like a game. Oh, happy to do that. And I’ll take off my socks are happy to do that. Now massage my right foot with the lavender oil. I love it so much. This feels so good. Now would you do my left? Or would you do my toes now? See the morons? Amazing. Ask for doesn’t matter how big the response is just immediate and right away what you’re doing every time you’re asking and getting, you’re producing estrogen. It’s an amazing thing which it takes you out of the mistrusting place where women go to what does he still love me? Is he offering to do things for me? See, that’s a as an estrogen producer, if you haven’t only magically know what she’s thinking and needing at that time, and you have the motivation to do it. Because men are always holding back Do I really have to do it? Because half two is what produces testosterone get two is estrogen. So oh gosh, play the rules of the game. And so here’s how you could ruin the game is let’s say he’s washing the dishes for you. And while he’s over there, washing the dishes. You’re like now ironing clothes. Okay, you can’t do anything for yourself. You’re dependent on him. Totally. So that’s a sometimes to couples I have him feed her. I used to do that in my workshops when people would eat there. And but the the He’s washing the dishes then the mistake women were making. And now would you always keep the kitchen clean? Okay. And yeah, that is a moment, a teaching moment or go beyond that, you know, it’s just right there, I have an ache in my foot and I need you to massage it, so to speak. It’s something he can do. And he doesn’t have to ever do again, unless you ask him. It’s such good training and it teaches it brings back that motivation spark inside of him and awakens inside of her that feeling you have when you got together where you don’t have to ask everything’s just happens for you magically, that is estrogen going up. In a way estrogen will go up and more powerful, is you have an integration of masculine and feminine because when you’re in your male side you’re asking and your female side is the part of you that is wanting to help is depending. So the immature woman can’t ask the mature woman is on her male side because you’re a boss, you asking him all the time you’re directing, I want you to do this and I want you to do this just like you’re the boss. And that at the same time it’s little things and you’re and it’s all where you’re depending on him for your happiness feels so good. Or I feel so relieved. I’m so happy. Oh, I got to take a bath while you did the dishes for me. That’s so wonderful. Although you couldn’t do that in 10 minutes, but you could start your bath.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, oh my god. Well, I’m gonna here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna raise your testosterone by telling you that the world needs you to keep talking about this because I have no doubt you’re saving relationships.

John Gray
So maybe we should do another one on behavior skills of women and men to increase now we’ve sort of covered the basics we can get into how to ask and get the support you need what to do when men go to their cave to rebuild your SPS because men pull away women go after him thinking that if we connect again we’ll get estrogen no go let them go and no Where are you go that will produce your estrogen for you. It’s kind of like when I’m fasting if I get hungry, I go right to a glass of water. And I also do another one which is limited honey. That takes away my hunger completely amazing. Amazing. Well

Dr. Mindy
I will have you back. I will take you up on this was such a joy. You saw the smile on my face. I

John Gray
get it I get with you what you’re doing. The recognition of hormones is so significant in life as well as fasting a big part of my life.