Mindful Menopause: Brain Health & Stress Management Through Meditation – with Ariel Garten

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Hey, Resetters on this episode of The Resetter podcast, I bring you Arielle Garten. So check this out. How many of you have tried to meditate but struggled? And you I mean, I don’t know if you’re like me where you see the research, you hear the stories, you’re like, gosh, I should really meditate and then you sit yourself down, and you struggle. So if that’s you, you’re not alone. That has totally been me specially I have a very active mind. And meditation has been a real mountain to climb. But when I look at the science, I’m like, Wow, it’s so profound. If I could just figure out how to meditate. I sure I would get all these incredible benefits. So I wanted to bring on Arielle Garten because she’s the co founder of MUSE. If you don’t know about muse, this is a menopausal gift, and you’re going to hear us talk about it. It’s a headband that trains your brain to meditate. So it’s like having a meditation coach. So what we do in this episode, Arielle and I is we talk about why you should meditate. And I really, for all the women over 40, I brought this to you because I want you to continue, you’re going to hear in many of my podcasts, I really want to continue to help you understand your brain, and we just don’t have enough information out there. So with Arielle, I wanted to talk about what meditation is doing to the neurochemical armor that I’ve taught you all and discussed on many podcasts here. And what do we know about meditation as far as helping us stay focused and helping us stay happy and help us sleep, all the things that really matter to us as we go through this menopausal journey? So you’re going to hear that we’re going to talk about why it works. We’re going to talk about how you should be meditating, we’re going to talk about Kenya mess meditation up. And then specifically, how does do we use this lifestyle tool to really soothe our brain as it goes through this neurochemical change? So it’s a beautiful discussion. It’s a good mixture of neuroscience mixed with application and I really strongly feel like her product Muse is incredible. She has, by the way, her background, she has a neuroscience background, she has psychotherapy background, which you’ll hear and muses won all kinds of awards. So whether you choose to jump in the Meuse lane and use it or not, I this, this discussion will give you an fresh look at meditation through the eyes of the menopausal brain. And if you want to use Muse that she did give us an incredible discount, and all you have to do is go to choose muse.com/pals. And they’ll give you 20% off and a free year of their premium app, which is amazing. So I just listen with an open heart as always, and know that I’m continuing to find resources for you all. I get I get the menopausal brain. I am her and I understand what that journey looks like. And Muse is a real pivotal part of our whole process and meditation in general. So Arielle Garten, enjoy. Hey, Dr. Mindy here and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy Awesome, okay, Ral full. For starters, I want to welcome you to the reseller Podcast. I’m so happy to have this conversation with you.

Ariel  

Thank you it is an honor and pleasure to be here. Thank

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

you. You know, it’s really interesting in the meditation conversation, it seems from everything I’ve seen in research from so many people who say meditation has changed their life. It I don’t think we have to debate whether this is a powerful tool or not. The challenge that we have is for women over 42 Things are really really like elephants in the menopausal room. One, we can’t sit our butt down to meditate meditation with a menopausal brain is not easy. And two, we are lacking sleep or not sleeping thoroughly through the night and so I get personally very very frustrated when meditation experts stand up and they’re like this is the Savior because I really want to customize it for menopausal women. So let’s start off with just the basics. Can you tell me why meditation is so powerful for the brain but specifically the menopausal brain

Ariel  

Awesome. That’s one of my favorite questions. So let me start as a 44 year old woman who is starting to enter into the world of perimenopause, and menopause, and all the people around me all my girlfriends are going down the pathway. This is a question that’s become very, very large and my and my community’s minds. So meditation is one of those things that is incredibly helpful for menopause. And for at the time of changes, because it helps both on the emotional regulation side, it helps to improve sleep, which we can get into in great detail about how to do it and how to use it. And then it also makes real change in your brain. So we all know that as we go through the process of menopause, you have a decrease in progesterone and estrogen in the brain. And that leads to feelings of confusion, that leads to emotional dysregulation that leads to dysregulation of your hypothalamus, which is the part of your body or your brain responsible for your sweating, your thirst, your hunger, your temperature, regulation, all those fun things that go off. And so meditation then becomes a key tool to help regulate your neuro chemistry as you go through this phenomenal and wonderful change in life. You

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

know, I’m so happy to point out the phenomenal, wonderful part of this because one of the things that I’m really trying to do is help women understand themselves first, because I think we come running into our 40s. And we have no idea what it means to lose estrogen and progesterone. And so and symptoms, as you go through those Peri menopausal years are very, they’re always changing. You know, sleep was the first one I felt in my early 40s. It was like I was a great sleeper, and all of a sudden I couldn’t sleep. And then focus became another one that I couldn’t, I couldn’t focus and do the same amount of work that I did in a day. And then stress, I couldn’t handle stress. It was like the way stress was coming at me it was like I was overreacting. And so I went and I actually looked into the research on what is going on. And I did a whole podcast on this a solo podcast, where we’re not just losing estradiol and progesterone. Those two hormones stimulated dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, glutamate, oxytocin, BDNF, and GABA. So we’re actually losing 10 neuro chemicals. And when I saw that, I was like, you can’t just slap a patch on us or rub some cream on us and say, you’re good. There has to be a whole nother toolbox, and meditation and all the research that I’ve seen, really can help us bring back neuroplasticity. It can help with GABA to calm the brain. And it can help us with cognition to hold on to new information. So talk to me a little bit about from your lens. What do we know about meditation and its ability to help these other neurotransmitters that we may be losing. And because I want, I want my listeners to understand we have a lot more options. And when you look at the science, something like meditation is right smack in the middle of helping us with those 10 neuro chemicals.

Ariel  

That’s a great question. I love the idea of thinking about how meditation actually makes real changes in the brain in the brain. So one of the things that we experience as menopause comes is a sense of confusion and lack of focus. Yeah, so as you age, there’s a part of the brain in the front of your head called your prefrontal cortex. your prefrontal cortex is responsible for your planning your organization, and your attention. And as we age, our prefrontal cortex thins, one of the great things that meditation helps us to do is to actually strengthen the prefrontal cortex. So as you do the practice of meditation, and we can talk in detail about what that entails. But as you’re focusing your attention on a single point, you’re actually enhancing the activity of your prefrontal cortex and strengthening its ability to maintain attention, to help you organize to help you plan. So you’re really working the part of your brain that’s responsible for those skills that it feels like you’re beginning to lose. Another way that meditation has significant impact is that it decreases the activity of the amygdala. So the amygdala is the part of your brain that’s responsible for the feelings of anxiety, for the sense of stress for the you know, like rush of panic that can come through you all of those things that we get. So in menopause, that may be as simple as just feeling more stressed or like feeling a little on edge. It may be full on panic attacks for some people. And that is the result of the interplay of hormones and chemicals on your amygdala. I

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

just don’t want people that was brilliant, and I want to make sure that our listeners really understand what you just said. The amygdala is our fear center. And it’s always keeping you safe. And the prefrontal cortex, I look at it like the Hope Center it’s possibility and helps you achieve goals. And you’re moving in and out of these two all the time. So you typically don’t operate in both of them at the same time. And I can tell you from personal experience, I have definitely found my amygdala looping, and how it just won’t shut up. And it wants to tell me all the things that are about to fall apart. And so just, I just want to highlight that because that I know, so many women are experiencing that. And in laypersons terms, that’s what is so important about these two parts of the brain.

Ariel  

The amygdala is the thing that makes you feel crazy, that thing that makes me do like, Yeah, over overwhelmed by emotional anxiety, and constantly on edge looking at, you know, what is what is the danger, you know, it’s the thing that generates and creates the worries because you have the sensation of danger attached to a specific thing, like your kid driving or the meeting you had or whatever. And then you feel the sensation of anxiety, and then the thoughts come and the anxiety and the thoughts and it loops forward. So as it turns out, as we go through menopause, and our estrogen and progesterone decrease, it just estrogen and progesterone can have a very calming effect on the brain and on the amygdala. And as those begin to drain out there calming effects decrease. We can, however, bring in other tools to calm the brain that aren’t just estrogen and progesterone, we can bring in a meditation practice, which then strengthens the prefrontal cortex and calms the amygdala. So it’s kind of like the amygdala is the child that’s like scared and freaking out. And the prefrontal cortex is the parent who can see what’s going on and be logical. And in a meditation practice, we’re actually strengthening the relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, just like you were saying, they’re not both necessarily active at the same time. So when you bring in the prefrontal cortex, you down regulate and calm that scared little child, the amygdala, you’re able to be like, they’re there. It’s okay. Yeah. And so this practice can really help us shift our neuro chemistry and overcome the challenges that happen when we lose some of that great extra estrogen and progesterone.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, oh, that was that was perfectly said. And I hope everybody gets this because what I want to make sure is what happens to women, is when the amygdala become so loud, then we either start blaming ourselves, we start turning on ourselves, or we blame everybody around us, or we start yelling at everybody around us, or everybody is making us irritable. And it is very much what I have felt as a 54 year old woman that is now postmenopausal, it has felt like at times, like somebody’s hijacked my brain, and I and I don’t recognize myself. And so I just want people who are listening, if you resonate with that, please stick through this conversation, because one of the things I’m trying to highlight is we have more tools than we’re being taught right now. So just wanted to make a side note there. Here’s

Ariel  

a really good side note. And it really is like the sensation that somebody has hijacked my brain because you’re used to being in control. And you’re used to your amygdala, you know, activating 15, or 20%, and your prefrontal cortex, you know, being in command and understanding what’s going on. And when that relationship becomes flipped, it really like you’re the little child again, like you’re the little kid who’s just, you know, scared or activated or triggered by things that should be totally normal and fine, my

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

gosh, yes. Yeah, it’s so well said, That’s so well said.

Ariel  

And that’s why when we bring in practices like meditation that are able to calm the amygdala up because we breathe deeply while we meditate, and we lower our heart rate, and those two physiological changes down regulate the amygdala and reduce the level of cortisol in our body. So it’s the amygdala fires, which then goes down a pathway of changes, which releases cortisol in your body. And it’s mainly at the cortisol that’s responsible for that feeling of being so ramped. Yep. And so we activate, we deactivate it by working directly on the amygdala and meditation and calming it down. And by strengthening the prefrontal cortex, strengthening the ability to be able to rise up and say, Okay, I see that I might be feeling kind of crazy, but that actually, logically everything’s okay. And I know this is just my body and my mind going through a change. And I know I can bring in tools to help and manage it. Yeah. And so you’re able to, in essence, bring yourself further under control.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, you know, it’s I think that’s so brilliantly said I had an experience So I’ve been using the Muse regularly. So I could probably give Muse credit for this. But I have been traveling a lot. And when I re enter back into my home, that reentry can be difficult. We have adult children living in our house, sometimes the house is a mess. And so I did this on Saturday, I reentered back into the home after being gone for a week. And normally if the kitchens a mess, the house is a mess. My menopausal brain just freaks out. But I was able this time to actually walk in and go, Huh, the house is a mess. But wow, is there a lot of love here? Wow. Like my kids friends were there. And my they were cooking up a storm. And I’m like, there’s so much love here. And I took a step back. And I’m like, wow, I haven’t had that thought in like 10 years. So I just want to say what Arielle is saying is magic. When you start to dip into learning how to meditate, I had a completely different reaction than I’ve been having over the last 10 years. So that’s real life example right there. Amazing.

Ariel  

Can you talk a little bit about how that went for you? So you went in, you might have you know, had the initial feeling. And then something else came in, you know, your your wisdom, your ability to shift your perspective came in? Because that’s what you’ve been practicing? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah. So I would say, what I’ve noticed with my menopausal brain is that I’m quick to react. So I see something stressful. And the amygdala has a whole story about what is going on, you know, let’s use the fact that house not being clean, let’s just use that, you know, it’s like, they don’t love me enough to know that I like the house to be clean. You know, my adult children, I didn’t train them well enough to clean the kitchen. You know, like all the stories the amygdala wanted to tell me, I always say that the amygdala and the hippocampus, I bet you like gang up on on the brain. Because the amygdala goes and dips into memories in the in the hippocampus. And it’s like, remember the time that happened, and that happened. But I found I had the thought I walked in the door and I was like, Oh, God, this kitchen. And then I could smell garlic. My son and his friend were making garlic bread in the in the oven. They were like so excited to tell me about the menu that they had and what they were cooking. And I immediately went from the house, like within seconds. The house is a mess, too. I love that my 21 year old son loves to cook. I love that all his friends are here and filling my house with love. Like I switched in an instant. And that was brand new.

Ariel  

Amaze, amazing. Amazing. Okay, so part of how that happens. Let me sort of dissect that a little bit. Yeah, one is because the prefrontal cortex is also responsible for responsible for inhibition. So it’s the one that depicts the activity of, you know, I feel like I’m crazy. And then your prefrontal cortex comes in, it’s like, let’s inhibit that action. So it’s inhibiting your amygdala. And it’s giving you perspective. So there’s another part of the brain that is activated when you meditate, and that is the TPJ, the temporal parietal junction. And it’s the part of the brain that’s responsible for empathy, compassion and perspective taking. So in that very moment, and that experience you had, you had three different things that meditation helps you do. You had the calming of the amygdala so that that reactivity, you know, didn’t happen, the prefrontal cortex coming in and inhibiting, you have the prefrontal cortex taking new perspectives, like sort of, it’s called metacognition, we’ll talk about in a minute, and then you had the temporal parietal junction, the TPJ, giving you empathy, compassion and perspective taking. So that was meditation in that moment. Amazing. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I mean, it was really and then I just sort of watched myself and thought, wow, this is a different reaction than I’ve been having. And, and, you know, I think part of this, the root of what we’re talking about that I want all women to understand, is that I’ve been very articulate with my family, like, my brain is different. I’m working on it. And so they understand like the changes that I’ve had. And so I think that it’s really important that we do as menopausal women to and Peri menopausal women like talk about this, and they’re probably happy to see me react differently, for sure. But it’s just really interesting when your brain gets hijacked. And now it comes back online. You’re like, Oh, I remember you. You’re back. That’s how I felt on Saturday. So now I won’t be using it was amazing. So thank you to for all you’ve done with me it was because that was small bits of me training it to get me to that moment. I will tell you one thing that I found because I in all the research I’ve done I know meditation is good. But when I sit down For the last couple of years, the amygdala just has a whole lot to say to me. And I can’t quiet it. So I’ve tried breath meditation. I’ve tried listening to music, I’ve tried to guided meditation, but something about the Muse and the rain and all those things like it just makes it. I don’t know, it made it like effortless for me. So talk a little bit just about styles of meditation. And we’re here to have a conversation about meditation, not just talk about this incredible product that you’ve created. But what are how do I know the best style of meditation? Sure.

Ariel  

So there’s a number of different types of meditation, the most common form is focused attention meditation. And in focused attention meditation, you’re focusing on a single object. And that can be your breath, that can be a mantra, it can be Kandel. So you’re focusing on one thing, and when your attention wanders away from that one thing, you’re able to bring your attention back. So that’s the kind of muscle of the attention that’s the thing that was really working your prefrontal cortex, because you are attending to one thing, you’re noticing your thoughts when it moves off to something else, and you start to have thoughts. And then you’re making a choice to say, I don’t need to be thinking these thoughts, right? Now I can bring myself back to my breath, or the mantra. And so most people think that mantra meditation is different than breath focus, essentially, you’re focusing on one thing, whether it’s in your head or in your body, and you’re not letting your thoughts spiral. Another common form of meditation is a walking meditation. And in a walking meditation, you might be focusing your attention on the part of your body that’s moving, and that’s touching the ground. So moving meditation, your foot might be moving across the ground, and you’re moving very slowly, and just feeling it feeling every single sensation. Now, although this is called something different than the focused attention, meditation, it’s very much the same experience, because you are learning to pour all of your attention into one thing and just be with it. And that thing is a sensory experience, not the wandering thoughts in your head. So as a core, we talk about two different things. We can talk about meditation, which is the practice the thing that you’re doing. And we can talk about mindfulness, which is the skill that you’re building when you meditate. So meditation might be focusing on your breath or focusing on your foot as it moves on the floor. And the skill that you build when you do that is called mindfulness, which is your mindful awareness of your thoughts, feelings, sensations and the world around you. And it’s that skill of mindfulness that you take with you throughout the day. That allows you to say, Oh, I’m feeling a little anxious right now. Oh, okay. I’m feeling anxious. Let me not just react, let me experience that. And differently. Let me make different choices about Yeah, So mindfulness is the powerful skill.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So that’s really interesting. I never I always wondered the difference between mindfulness and meditation. So meditation is the action you used for to become more mindful, you got it. Okay, that was helpful. Thank you. Now, the other thing I heard in, in both of those styles, and I think this is something that really is powerful, is that you’ve got to give your mind something to do. So if you put it if you’re doing a walking meditation, and you’re focused on you’re on the grass, you’re giving your mind somewhere to go. I’ve heard a lot about yoga nidra, where you’d like all of a sudden that that version of meditation, where you’re focusing on a different body part, I know, transcendental meditation, you’re focusing on on a mantra, I think that is key I have found for my menopausal brain is I’ve got to put it somewhere. If I don’t put it somewhere, then the amygdala is going to tell me what to do. So would you say that that style, the length, like it doesn’t matter what type you’re doing, you don’t get a different benefit? You just need to have something that the brain is focused on beyond beyond your thoughts.

Ariel  

Yeah, so first of all, there’s like this misconception that in meditation, your mind is just supposed to be empty, and then you know, enlightenment will come. That doesn’t happen. It’s not our it’s not how it works, because our minds are not empty. And so in each of these practices that we’re describing, and we can talk about a breath practice there, again, you’re focused on your breath. And each of these practices that we’re describing, what we’re getting our mind to do, is to stick on one thing and stay there. And what that then teaches us to do is to observe our mind because we have to know where our mind is to notice when our mind goes off into thoughts to be able to say hey, you mind I don’t need to be right. I don’t need to be there right now. I’m in control one back to the thing we Want to attend to? Yep. And so we are narrowing the focus of our experience down to just one thing, which for menopausal brain that’s used to jumping around like crazy, can be very challenging. But that’s why as you train it, you practice it, you get better and better, and you start to reverse some of those menopausal brain experiences that we can have. Does

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

it matter how long you sit in meditation? Is there an is there? You know, the type A and me is like, is there a goal like, like, how, what if we’re going to do this on a regular basis? How often how much time? The goal to me would be what my the, you know, the reward really was the reaction I had on Saturday. But is there a way for us to know if we’re doing it right. And if we’re doing it long enough, help us understand that?

Ariel  

Sure. So the most important part of meditation is just to make sure that you do it consistently. When we look at the research, it doesn’t really matter, the time of day, everyone’s always like, when’s the best time to meditate, the best time to meditate is the time when you are going to do it. And the best length to meditate is the amount of time that you can actually get yourself to do it. And if that’s five minutes a day for you, great if the if you work your way up to 20. Fantastic. So when we look at the literature, most meditation studies are done on about 20 minutes of meditation, and you start to see benefits after two to three weeks. In the studies that we’ve done specifically with news, we’ve had protocols of as little as five minutes per day of meditation, and you begin to see significant benefits again, on sort of the two to three week range, that’s when you’re gonna feel something different. And by six weeks, you’re at the point where you have a significant change, and you like this thing so much that you want to do it every day. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

yeah, you gamified it a bit. I mean, that’s what I love is it’s just has like a little it’s like, okay, somebody’s gonna walk this with me right now. And, and, and it’s really brilliant. So Okay, talk to me about sleep. Because, again, I’m just going to call myself out, one of the biggest challenges that I had to really figure out is how to go from a work day, to resting to sleep, the my brain just wants to go, go, go, go go. And it doesn’t want to turn off. So when I get into bed, I’m still thinking good or bad about the day, I’m thinking about tomorrow. I’m thinking about, you know, all kinds of things, and I cannot get my brain to just shut up. So how does meditation help with that, because my understanding from hearing a lot of menopausal women is actually go it starts off in the peri menopausal years, staying asleep becomes a problem. As you get closer to your post menopausal or what I call your transition year, getting to sleep is really hard. So talk to me about how meditation can help there.

Ariel  

Yeah, meditation is incredibly helpful for sleep. When we actually looked at our population of MUSE users, we discovered, the majority of people were using muse to meditate just before they fell asleep, because it was helping them sleep better. So we actually went and made a tool, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes, that actually helps you fall asleep. And it’s because meditation is so powerful at quieting your mind. So you know, what’s the number one reason we all say we can’t sleep exactly what you said, my brain is just racing, I can’t make it stop. Well, in meditation, what we’re literally doing is training our brain to stop racing. When you meditate, you’re focused on your breath, your mind wanders and you say, No, I don’t need that mind to wander, it’s okay. Come on back to the breath. It’s okay thoughts. Think about you later. It’s all good. And while you’re doing that, you’re breathing deeply and you’re calming your body, you’re down regulating your cortisol, you’re lowering your blood pressure, and you’re helping yourself fall asleep. So meditation is incredibly helpful for sleep in two ways. One, it helps you fall asleep by quieting the mind and decreasing cortisol, too. It helps you when you’ve woken up in the night to fall back asleep. Based on this notion of acceptance, so acceptance is something we haven’t yet talked about. But it is a very key part of how meditation helps the menopausal journey. So as we go through life, as we grow older, we learn to accept things you know, we can’t necessarily control that it doesn’t serve us to be annoyed at it. We can let it go small things don’t bother us as much. And then we get into all of these crazy changes of perimenopause and menopause and we don’t know what’s going on and we get very, very frustrated and we end up ramping it up. We end up creating more and more drama around what’s going on, which only creates more emotional distress. Yeah. Meditation teaches us to Accept to accept what is a principle called equanimity. And so as we begin to go through these changes, if we’re doing it through the lens of acceptance. Oh my god, it becomes so much easier. Yeah. And that really, really shines when it comes to sleep. So I know for myself, I’m 44 years old, I’ve started to have night sweats. And they would wake me up in the middle of the night because my sheets would be drenched. Yeah, sister. Yep, you go through the funny thing of oh my god, I’m so hot. And then you take the sheet off. And then because you’re sweating, you’re like, Oh, my God, I’m so cold. And then it’s gross and achy. So, yeah, for the first while I was like, This is gross, this is a key, I need to get dried off, like, how am I going to deal with it, and I’d be up for a while just battling with it. And then when I applied my meditation brain to it, and I said, I’m a little bit down, okay, it’s gonna happen every night, big deal, I could just go back to sleep. And now, no word of a lie. My thighs are sweaty, I wake up in the middle of night with that, like, you know, hot sweat all over me. And I’m maybe like, become conscious for a second of it, and then let it go and fall back asleep. Because it’s not gonna make any difference. I mean, no, I didn’t stay awake, or I just let it go. And the outcomes the same, except as a situation to I sleep.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

And so that now that I’m just gonna say it’s probably because you’ve trained your your brain because I used to have to, like, get up and change the sheets and change my clothes, like at your age I had, you know, and then I would do what I call the worry scan, where I would start to think of all the things I need to fix it to in the morning. It was horrible. So I think that’s really interesting that the acceptance piece, and I would say that’s kind of the biggest thing that I noticed in those Peri menopausal years is the brain not wanting to accept it, stuff that was going on. And so I think that’s brilliant. Now, can you get meditation wrong? Is there a way to do it where you don’t get this training of your brain?

Ariel  

So you pointed out a very important word, which was training. So a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, I go for a run. And that’s my meditation. Well, if you’re running and thinking about things, or taking a long drive, and your mind is wandering, that is not meditating. Yeah. If you’re in yoga and thinking about how much pain you’re in, or your grocery list that is not meditating. So we can do these things that look like meditation, but they’re not actually meditating unless you’re doing the work with your mind. Yeah. And that work with your mind is staying focused on one thing, noticing what’s going on in your mind making a different choice. When your mind wanders. That’s how you you have trained the beast of your own brain. Yeah. Okay. Very beautiful, wonderful thing.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Just call it a beast. Yeah, I, I’ve been trying to train her for the last couple of years. So I would definitely call it that. Okay, talk a little bit about the Muse technology, because those of you that are listening to this, and you’re like, Yeah, this sounds too good to be true. I just, I’m just going to really call myself out. I’ve been trying all different types of meditation. And I’ve really struggled. Like, it’s just hard to calm the brain, I have a very active brain. And, and so but once I leaned into the muse, all of a sudden, like, the music, the rain, like, it’s brilliant, and it almost was too good to be true. I was like, how’s this thing know, if I’m in a meditative state? So talk a little bit about what you created here? Because it’s, I think it’s, it’s, I know, you market it to everybody, but I think menopausal women everywhere. Like we could just end the suffering with this one tool. And I want people to understand how powerful it is.

Ariel  

Ah, thank you. And actually, Mayo Clinic is doing a study now with menopausal women using muse to help them improve their sleep and stress symptoms. So yes, thank you have these works. It is a slim little device that slips on your forehead, and it has sensors in your forehead and behind your ears. It’s actually a real clinical grade EEG. My own background is in neuroscience. And we have a team of neuroscientists that work on this, and it tracks your brain while you meditate. And so Muse is tracking your brain during your meditation, and it knows when you’re focused and when your mind has wandered. And so when you’re focused, you hear gentle, quiet sounds. And as your mind wanders away onto a thought, you hear the sound of the rain pickup. So that becomes your cue to bring your attention back to your breath and quiet your mind again. So during your meditation, you’re actually hearing in real time what your brain is doing. Yeah, so for those of you who are like I don’t know what my mind supposed to be doing. While I meditate like what’s going on in there. Am I doing this right? It’s like Muse is like a coach in your head, letting you know when your mind’s wandered, encouraging you to bring it back to your breath and reading forcing you for staying there. So it really is the thing that for a lot of people gets you to just start your meditation practice. For me, it was like, Alright, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I tried to meditate for so long. And it wasn’t actually using us while we were building it that I was like, Oh, this is what meditation is. Okay, that’s what my brain needs to do. I got it. And then from there, it’s all easy. You know, from the ones you add it, US helps you stick with it and build your practice and go deeper with it. Do

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

you? Do we see changes in brainwaves when we meditate? Like, are we in a theta state when we go into meditation?

Ariel  

Yeah, so typically, when you’re in your every day, you can be in theta, which is a dream state, or beta, which is focused or high beta, which is anxiety, that’s where the like, really busy brain is, yeah, when we meditate, your brainwaves become more coherent and calm. So they tend to come down into an alpha state, and really kind of come into one beautiful little Alpha peak, that is really demonstrating that your mind is working in a calm and coherent way.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, because here’s, I always think of the terms of how were we designed. And so when we look at the calming that happens in meditation, my brain goes to, well, for sure, we weren’t meant to be in this high beta state where we’re constantly taking in information and, and putting information out. I know that delta is that brainwave state when we’re asleep. And my understanding, but I’d love your opinion on this is that theta is not only where it’s calm, but that’s where all the you can get downloads and insights and things that can pop in that are like, whoa, like, like, I was doing a walking meditation, I with music, when the title to my book popped in my head fast like a girl. And it just came out of nowhere. And I was like, Whoa, that’s what it’s going to be called. And so there’s something in this theta state that I think is the natural is a natural state for the brain that we are accessing, because of the over stimulation of this information age that we’re living in. When we’re looking at training the brain, we have such a high, high value on information in our in our society, you know, the people that are the most genius, are the ones that know the most. And what I’ve come to understand through my menopausal journey, and with playing with different tools of meditation is that my most creative thoughts, and my most grounded sense of being comes when I’m in this alpha theta state. So but but my menopausal brain wants to move into beta very, very easily. So if we look at just a holistic approach to the brain, do we have any research on how much time we should spend in beta and how much time we should spend in alpha and theta? And the answer could easily be we don’t I just have a curious thought about it.

Ariel  

That’s actually a great question. So high beta is associated with greater anxiety. Actually, women tend to have more beta activity than men do. So that’s, that’s interesting. And women tend to have more high beta activity. That

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

is, why is that it could

Ariel 

be part of the menopausal effect, that we, you know, end up with these greater amounts of thinking of anxiety and rumination and overthinking, I don’t actually know what it is, it could be because our progesterone levels vary throughout the month, if you ever wanted to, for those of you who are not yet menopausal or preparing menopausal. Just imagine the shift and feelings that you feel between, you know, the beginning of your middle of the month, and those couple days before your period When Everything Feels really intense. You know, shifts and hormones really do Shift or brengt brainwaves and brain states. I think I know that as we move into states of alpha and theta, they’re states of much greater calm and much greater insight. So there’s not necessarily research but a lot of wisdom and ancient practice that talks about these states of being these dates of meditation as being states in which we are able to gain more insight in which we’re able to quiet the buzz in our head and listening to our body and reflect on the world rather than just reacting. So I think it would be pretty accurate statement or direction to go in to say that these dates give us greater wisdom, greater insight and greater sense of calm and being.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So I have a theory that when we go through the peri menopausal menopausal year it’s not really a theory it’s it’s it’s more of a term I’ve come up with that explains this neurochemical shift. And I call it a neuro chemical armor that in our younger years, we had a neurochemical armor that protected us from stress. And that neuro chemical armor sheds and now we’re not protected. So the way that my brain feels is like its raw, it is easily agitated, it struggles sometimes to find focus, it just feels like an open wound. So would would it be we’ve talked about like, you know, meditation and how it can train the prefrontal cortex. But what about something like neuroplasticity, and because my feeling is that in this rawness without these neuro chemicals, I need to create more, I call them baby neurons, more baby neurons and more neuronal connections in different parts of my brain. And I’ve come to a place now where I’m now seeing it as an opportunity that when the neurochemical armor comes down, we can work on our traumas, we can look at our lifestyle in a really healthy healing way. And we can start to build some baby neurons so that we are able to step into these incredibly wise years as we go into our post menopausal time. And so talk to me a little bit about neuroplasticity, and neurogenesis, what do we know about its ability to grow as new neurons that will serve us for decades going forward?

Ariel  

First of all, Oh, my God, I love that metaphor, that we are shedding our you know, neurochemical armor. And that feels very resonant to what is happening also kind of scientifically. And as we age, we lose some abilities, which, as you said, exposes areas of opportunity for us to dive in and to learn further. neuroplasticity, as we now know continues well into old age, our brain is incredibly plastic. And when we lose one ability, if we work on it, we can gain new ones. And every time we work on our brain, every time we do something new every time we feed it with novelty and we examine a situation from a different perspective, we are enhancing those parts of our brain, we are building the muscle of our brain, we are retraining, not necessarily the old armor that we had, but we’re building new skills and ladders and supports. Yeah, and neuroplasticity continues in old age. And neurogenesis can also continue and one of the quickest and easiest ways to increase neurogenesis is exercise. I actually used to work in a research lab where we would put rats on a running wheel in and then count how many baby neurons they had after running on that running wheel. And so we humans, just like rats on a wheel. The more we exercise, the more we generate BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor. And the more we can stimulate the generation of new neurons in our hippocampus. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

and estradiol stimulated BDNF, so when she goes away, you don’t have as much BDNF. And so one of the things I’ve also been doing this year as I have a team of researchers looking at all these 10 neuro chemicals, and I’ve asked them to bring me What do we know for BDNF serotonin, dopamine, like, what’s the research saying? And with BDNF exercise, absolutely weightlifting breaking down muscle go up a metabolite will go up into the brain and stimulate BDNF. So I couldn’t agree with you more on that. Do we have any research on serotonin, dopamine and meditation is there like the 5-HT2A receptor site is like this, it goes it’s like missing estradiol when she goes away. And so then you’re not getting as much serotonin production. I have seen like fasting can help with the five HTT to a receptor site. We’re seeing exercise HIIT training, getting your heart rate up and down. Do we have any knowledge of what meditation can do for that site? Yep,

Ariel  

meditation, because it down regulates your cortisol levels. And because it kind of brings your brain into greater coherence and decreases your anxiety, then allows you to replenish your stores of serotonin more effectively. And so we get this feeling of calm and peace from meditation. A part of that is this heritage genic effect.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah. And that’s what I feel like when I step away after a muse session. There is a sense of calm there is a sense of like, Oh, I feel have a little bit happier. What about oxytocin? So estradiol also stimulates oxytocin there. The some of the research that my team has brought me is that mindfulness met dictation is the way the studies were pointed out, also improves oxytocin. What do we know about that? Yeah.

Ariel  

So oxytocin is one of the best things for a menopausal brain. And oxytocin can be stimulated in a number of ways, petting your pets, loving yourself loving your friends, and meditation. And again, meditation down regulates that cortisol negative loop, which tends to kind of be the antithesis of calming hormones like oxytocin and serotonin. So meditation has also been demonstrated to increase oxytocin levels. Is

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

it just while you’re meditating? Or did the benefits continue on long after after you’ve meditated? Like, does oxytocin just come in when you’re meditating? Or do you continue to get stimulation later.

Ariel  

So I haven’t seen research talking about state versus trade, short tail versus long tail. But thinking about it logically, don’t forget what you’re building when you meditate is the skill. So you’re on the mat, you’re focused on your breath, you’re calming your body, you’re learning to manage your mind, you’re learning to manage that negative self talk. And so when you then get off the mat and go into the world, you can have the experience like you had where you walked into the kitchen and said, This kitchen is filled with love. And so you don’t have all of the intervening monsters that would have robbed you of that experience of feeling that love. This part of what you had in that moment was glorious burst of oxytocin. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

yeah. And I did, especially when I smelt the garlic. And I was like, they’re cooking for me. Okay, well, then let me ask you my final question then. And I’d sweat I asked everybody, which is, what’s your superpower? What’s, what’s the superpower you bring to the world?

Ariel  

Ah, so I think my superpower is the ability to recognize that we are all amazing, beautiful, phenomenal creatures. And it’s just voices in our head that tell us otherwise. I think my superpower is the ability to see through the crap that our brain tells us even though I get caught up in believing it at times to be able to move it aside and just be able to be in the world without those negative voices and negative stories, and to inspire other people that they can do the same.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah. Oh, that’s a great superpower. We need that one. So appreciate you, Arielle. How do people find you? We’ll leave links but how do they find you and I’m sure we have a discount code that let you all are offering so I’d love for everybody to try it.

Ariel  

So you can find out more about Muse at choosemuse.com on all the socials, it’s at CHOOSE MUSE, you can shout out to me and I’ll respond on those. Then you can also find news for yourself. If you’re interested in decreasing your anxiety and sleeping better. You can go to choosemuse.com/pelz. Your name your beautiful name. Thank you. And we’ve got 20% off and a free year of premium EQ app access just for your listeners.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Amazing. Well, Arielle, thank you for helping all the menopausal women out there. Thank you because this was a game changer for meditation for me. So, so grateful for you and I can’t wait to see what my community does with this incredible tool. So thank you for everything you’ve done.

Ariel  

Thank you so much, greatly appreciated.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Thanks. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.