Hello and welcome to the 40s Formula, your go-to place for insightful discussions on
navigating your 40s and thriving in this transformative decade.
We're your hosts, Amanda and Jasmine, two women that are passionate about exploring
the challenges and adventures that come with turning 40 and what lies ahead.
Our guest today is Dr. Cheryl Kamm, functional medicine doctor, burnout recovery coach and
founder of the Vibrant Life Academy.
Cheryl empowers smart moms and coaches with the knowledge and nutritional wisdom to create
thriving families, teams and societies.
With 15 years of clinical experience, she provides the skills and mentorship to transform
your health deeply.
Cheryl studied at the highest level, obtaining an integrative and functional medicine fellowship
through the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.
She also holds a certification in advanced nutrient therapy and brain biochemistry by
the Walsh Research Institute in Chicago, USA.
Dr. Cheryl is also a homeschooling mom to four kids and she still makes time for self-care,
reflection and balance.
Cheryl, we are so excited to have you here today, not just as a medical professional,
though I'm very excited that you're here as a medical professional, but also as a fellow
coach and also as a fellow geriatric mama because we got to stick together.
Geriatric mama, thanks.
That's the first time I got called that, but you know what?
This is the truth.
You might have been called it on paper somewhere.
That's the first time I noticed being called that.
I love that your approach is all about vibrancy.
I feel like this is a term that we don't get enough of in our 40s about feeling vibrant.
There's so much chatter about how we're on the decline or how our hormones are dropping
and how everything, but this actually can be a vibrant chapter of our lives.
Can you talk to me about how you help women achieve vibrancy?
Thank you for asking that because I meet so many women who are just happy surviving.
How many times do we have these conversations like, oh, how are you doing?
Oh, same old, coping, surviving.
And I'm like, hey, what happened?
What happened to all of us and all of our fire growing up?
And I tap into my childhood a lot because I've got children now and I happen to, this
kind of phase in your life makes you look at your own childhood and go, what happened
to that fire?
Surely.
And I do feel it strongly.
I started on this path a lot before I hit 40, which is this year.
So definitely that's my fire.
And then seeing the contrast of how people have gone into their 30s or more mid 30s to
40 that I'm meeting women beginning to talk that way.
And I was like, what the heck?
No, this is not what we're here for.
But of course it started, this whole journey started and me interfacing with moms and women
and even menopausal and post menopausal women as well.
This whole phase definitely started with my own personal journey a lot earlier than this
time now where I just hit 40.
And can you tell us about that?
Because I noticed that one of your unique titles is a burnout recovery coach.
And you mentioned that you had an experience with burnout yourself.
When did that happen for you?
Absolutely.
And always learning definitely.
Well, in my life, even before medical school, even as a teen, it was kind of like in a rush
rush.
And I grew up in a place like Singapore, which I don't know if you know for those listening,
it's very big on achievement and big on qualifications and titles and basically achievement.
So my parents bought into that, my mom bought into that, they were separated.
So my mom bought into that and said, you know, listen, like if anything I could give them
is the best opportunity in education.
And after that, she can go figure stuff out herself, you know, and she made the choices
that she made.
But there was pressure.
I wasn't, you know, not so much the top school.
And then I ran well.
So I was in track and field and then got like kind of, you know, invited to the top school,
but then felt all the pressure as well, like pressure to run well, also pressure to study
well and score well and everything.
But I learned the game, I survived it.
But I also learned how to like, you know, pass exams and whatnot.
And that gave me some good skills.
And then, you know, went got myself into medical school and then and did all the things.
But you know, you can imagine what this go, go, go mentality can do to you.
Right?
I can only imagine because you know, the American school system is very different.
I mean, not to say that there's not an achievement culture.
And I think it's intensifying, you know, now.
But you know, we don't have the school competition that you guys have, meaning where it's like
you have to get into top school at a very young age, that that pressure comes on when
you are so unprepared for it, I feel, you know, observing that from an as an outsider.
Correct.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so, you know, I haven't found that sweet spot with it.
And so my children are not enrolled in schools at the moment until I until I find my sweet
spot.
How old are your kiddos?
I know you have four, which makes you again, official super mom.
Yeah, I mean, oh, my gosh, I like push them out.
We we really I got married late ish.
So 30 plus.
And you know, we did want lots and lots of kids around us.
So it was literally like if you want a lot of big family, you got to push them out, you
know, start now.
Yeah, correct.
So we started straight away and had kids every two years.
And so they are currently six, four, two and seven months.
That is a full house.
It's a full house.
It's all very cute.
It's really cute.
Your Instagram is so cute.
They're all so innocent.
And you know, there are these things that they say and I'm like, oh, my God, I wish
I could capture them.
But then I'm not being present.
And so so yeah, they're all there, like, you know, swimming around in my head.
And then they'll say some more different cute stuff and innocent stuff.
And it just makes us laugh.
And it's really joyful if I let it be.
And you know, sitting before us, right, you have a great energy.
You know, you're here, you're present, you're awake.
You know, it wasn't like you dragged in the door.
How do you mean?
I just had my breakfast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, there is also caffeine on the table.
There's also food on the table.
I'm going to take you on this latte.
But how do you maintain like feeling vibrant, feeling energetic when I think the dominant
narrative, especially on social media, when you have small kids at home is you're destroyed,
you're sleep deprived, you're struggling, you're barely making it above water.
How do you turn that narrative on its head?
I mean, that was what I was told as a pregnant mom with my first and I and you know, you
know, yeah, and seasoned moms were coming up to me saying your life is never going to
be the same.
And I'm like, what, you know, or you're never going to sleep again.
And four hours is amazing.
I cannot do with less than eight hours sleep.
Sometimes I need 10, you know, that's me and I know myself.
And so I was like, what am I getting myself into?
That gave me a lot of birth fear.
Yeah, that was quite harming.
Yeah.
Even though it contains some truth and maybe some good, good intention.
But me being me, I'm like, let me try it out myself and show them not show them, figure
it out and then see.
And then I saw something different and I'm like, now let me show them.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, I was like, hey, that was the first thing that I broke.
I'm not someone.
So I did a few things and it did require work, obviously, because I tended to be of a type
A personality.
If you could kind of still use that term around.
I tended to push myself a little bit more than I needed to.
And so the skill of learning how to take care of myself had to kind of retrain from scratch,
actually.
Yeah, to the point where I was like, OK, look, listen, in this skill, I'm an infant and I'm
going to learn it.
And however, what gave me a lot of wind beneath my wings is the fact that I'm a yeah, actually
the doctor thing I might I'm a bit like to and fro with.
But the fact that after that, I questioned myself and I was like, am I really helping?
Am I really helping?
What do you mean?
Like with doctoring and in the medical industry as we know it?
Because I really wanted to help.
That was it.
And I thought medical degree would help me help.
It didn't.
And so I continued looking for the answers and I went on to study nutritional medicine
and look at how our environment matters to us today.
It really, really does.
It's not an individual issue.
It's a societal and an environmental issue.
If everyone begins to see it that way, they're not going to be as hard on themselves.
So I studied that, went on courses, met lots of people, you know, hung out with naturopaths
and everything.
And then bit by bit got myself weller with nutrients, with herbs, with understanding
my hormones, with implementing this diet that I prescribed to other people but never practiced
myself.
And now I'm like, hang on, I need to kind of, you know, walk the talk now.
What sort of things should women who are in their 40s look out for when they are getting
to that sort of burnout stage or even prior to getting to that point where they're like,
what are the burnout red flags?
What should they be sort of focusing on?
Yeah, what are the red flags like you say?
Absolutely.
And there are six stages of burnout if you kind of quickly go Google it.
And being able to identify yourself at stage one before things go to stage six, where you're
behaving a little bit more like a chronic fatigue person with absolutely a whole host
of mood issues and definitely a whole list of diagnosis by that point, endometriosis,
COS, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, kidney disease, that extreme end of stuff,
right?
You know, where recovery is not just a two week adaptogen drink, right?
That's stage six.
And stage five is some level of that where actually there is some kind of recovery and
maybe the recovery can take you six months to a year.
Stage six, it's like there, I've still got clients in their two, three, four year journey
going slowly climbing out of that pit.
Okay, so six, five, then we've got four where maybe there's one diagnosis and there's that
feeling of stress, but someone's still managing to cope, right?
Still managing to cope with some drugs, with some crutches, with the best supplements,
but they're taking it every single day and they can't do a day without, right?
With your...
Are these drugs wine or?
No!
Is it schtickism or you really mean drug?
Yeah, you know, I mean, okay, we live in a bubble in Singapore.
Most people are kind of okay, but there are people using drugs to numb things.
Yeah, they're using alcohol to numb things.
That's for sure.
But my predominant population are living in Singapore and there's less of this drug
thing here, right?
You know, and alcoholism is not as rife, but surely the rest of the world, there's that
glass of wine every night that turns into two glasses of wine every night or like, oh
my God, it's like every single night now.
And if I don't have it, it's...
Yeah, I can't...
Yeah, you see?
So where are we?
Stage six, five, four, getting less in severity, three.
It's some measure of it.
All of it is a little bit of a spectrum.
So I think off the top of my head, I couldn't really kind of shout it out to you, but two
and three are more or less where a lot of people walking around in the professional
world, right, going to work every day, running their families, flick between.
Yeah.
You just flick in between stage two and three all the time.
Some days you're okay, some days you're not okay.
Some days you're coping and some days you're not coping.
But then in general, how you would report to your friends is like, I'm doing well, like
you're actually motivated.
Oh, like I...
And then I had, you know, I went on a 20 day diet and now I feel great.
And then you feel okay again.
And then you get into this state of despair and it's short lived.
And then you find some other thing.
I read this book and it really changed my life.
And then you keep going.
You just keep going with these little stop gap measures.
But then some people make it out and some people kind of still continue declining because
they haven't looked at the right things.
And by that point, the right things are going to be the key nutrients.
They're going to be your hormonal health.
They're going to be, you know, feeding yourself to your thyroid functions properly and all
these basics.
Yeah.
And looking at, you know, your emotional health, which is a big root of while a lot of us and
so many more, more and more people are being driven and driving themselves to burnout.
And that's what I used to do as well.
I had the world's programming in my head, talking to myself that way.
Yeah.
How did you deprogram?
I'm still doing it.
So I couldn't teach that.
I couldn't teach that because like, you know, I'm a 40, but I feel one years old in that
aspect really.
But yeah.
Yeah.
And then you really go, okay, we need to look a bit deeper as a medical professional, seeing
patients and helping them with burnout.
At first, I thought it was a two week process here.
You've got burnout.
Let me fix you.
Two weeks.
Just do this and just do that and you'll be fine.
Bye bye.
And then a year later, they'd be like, shit, this has happened again.
And then they'll pay me my fees and buy all the stuff.
And then they'll get so revolving door.
Did I solve a problem?
I don't think so.
I just perpetuated it.
Right?
Yeah.
So it's another in and out.
Like another, I was just like, Oh, wait a minute.
I'm just getting paid for them to flick between stage two and three of burnout.
And I'm earning money just for them to do this two and four thing.
I'm not helping.
Yeah.
Like you said, you're kind of opening a door between those two stages.
So they can get a little better and then they fall back to being a little worse and a little
better, a little worse.
A little better, a little worse.
Right?
Like, are we really helping there?
In the fitness profession, I think we see something similar as well.
You know, it's like people go super gung ho in the beginning.
You know, they want to do their 30 day challenge and get in the gym three times a week.
And then all of a sudden it just, you know, an injury happens, let's say, you know, from
from too, you know, too much too fast, too soon.
And then it scales them all the way back, sometimes even worse than they were before,
because then now they haven't exercised in six months because of the injury.
So I think what you and I do is probably very similar in that we're kind of we're encouraging
an approach that is not glamorous.
It is not a 30 day challenge, but it's one that has an eye on longevity and one that
has an eye on resilience.
And that's a word I know you use a lot in your practice, is building a resilient approach.
Now that I'm kind of making the unsexy stuff sexy, like sleep.
That is sexy to me.
It's talking my language, Cheryl.
You know, then I was wanting to also say that going back into stage one, let's talk about
stage one burnout.
That's a bit like people kind of don't really know what stage one burnout looks like.
It looks like the picture of success, actually.
I feel that really resonates with me because I'm the eldest child.
I'm a daughter.
I'm Indian.
So, you know, if I ever got a B in something, my mom would be like, who got an A?
And I would mention my friend's name.
She's like, OK, so you need to get an A. So I always felt this pressure, you know, and
it wasn't that, you know, my mom was not, you know, like proud of me or what I had achieved,
but it was like, you can do better.
And then I felt I could do better.
So, you know, I had to get into this particular university.
I had to study this particular course.
And all of that pressure, I felt, was always there.
And I feel like, you know, I suffered and I didn't realize I was suffering, you know.
I used to get chronic hives, as an urticaria.
I've got Hashimoto's.
When it's a perimenopause, like a 36.
So, you know, there's just so much that I feel came with the pressure of being the eldest
child, being Indian.
And it's not a particular issue with, you know, the way I was brought up.
I think it was just a cultural, cultural norm.
And a societal norm that we're here to break, actually.
I mean, if we want more of that and we want our kids to continue in this cultural norm,
then continue as you are.
But if you don't want that, then it kind of, we need to break this, no?
Yeah.
I feel the pressure there as well.
So, we're looking at going back to the UK.
My eldest son is probably going to be heading to secondary school there.
And now I'm seeing that there's these exams he needs to take.
And I'm, you know, other parents back in the UK are already tutoring their kids and pushing
them like, you're going to have to get into this school, you're going to have to get into
that school.
And I'm feeling the pressure again, like, shit, I want my son to be, you know, enjoy
his time as a child and, you know, be okay.
But I also do want him to get into these schools.
And now I'm like, ah, what do I do?
There is a conflict because we were exactly brought up in these systems, you know.
And even the decision to homeschool my children, right?
They're being homeschooled by a person, me, who is schooled.
Wow.
Right?
Yeah.
Right.
So what am I going to do?
I'm going to go home.
Like, that's toxic.
Isn't that what I was trying to avoid in the first place?
So it really takes a lot of unpicking and then that commitment to give yourself time
and space to do it because you're building a new personality.
Right?
So burnout.
It wasn't that two week Ashwagandha boost.
It really is.
I've been doing it for 20 years.
I mean, if you ask me when I first went out 20 years ago.
Wow.
Right?
And then I'm like, oh, it's the environment.
I'll just lighten my load, you know.
And now I'm married so we can share our financial burdens and now work a little bit less.
And I burnt out again.
And I'm like, this is not like, you know, and then I worked even less and I thinking
that that was the solution and no, burnt out again.
I mean, had that not as major as the first one, but had that feelings of apathy or, or
like, you know, anxiety and then the questioning came and then that tiredness and, and for
me, like my bugbear is eczema.
So that's always your kind of first sign.
My first sign.
Yeah, the signs of it, you see.
So so it's not a two week process.
Think more in the terms of it's a commitment to really unplug from it.
And it's going to take like 20 years kind of a thing, you know, like when you said,
you know, our parents are putting the pressure onto us.
I feel like they have bought into society and cultures depiction of success and then
they've placed it on us.
And so it's a matter of how much we buy into the external and then place it on our kids
as well.
And then it just continues that way.
And then it just generation on generation becomes a more high pressure environment.
Or less if we decide to choose different.
You know, I always, my wife shouldn't say I always joke, my parents joke, right, that
the concept of helicopter parenting kind of came about, you know, when I was growing up
and my parents always joke that they were never helicopter parents, which is very true.
My parents are submarine parents.
So they just kind of chill under the surface every now and then they throw up the periscope
and like everything good and we're back down.
My parents were super chill.
And I, and I, that's exactly how my husband and I tried to parent.
We, you know, I think it's a cute example, a cute metaphor, but it really is how we do.
You know, we obviously are always there, right?
We're always under the surface.
We're a presence, but we're not over them, hovering, looking, judging.
We're just underneath observing.
And again, every now and then the periscope is there, you know, a sound from above.
If we really think they're killing each other in the bedroom, my kids are three and two,
right?
So they're, they're real little.
And it's like, you know, I think we're going to continue on that same vein because we don't
want to perpetuate the cycle that my husband did grow up in, in Singapore with the competitive
school system, with the pressure at home, as soon as you step out of school, you know,
with the tuition, as soon as you get out of, you know, you go from pressure, you know,
the home pressure to the school pressure, to the tuition pressure, you close your eyes
for a while and it starts again.
And that's for over a decade.
And I can't imagine a child growing up in that.
And that's not how our kids are going to be.
Yeah.
So I'm sure.
We all are doing our bit right to try to, you know, check out of it.
You know, I've got friends in the school system trying to keep a balance with it as well.
It's a challenge.
Yeah, it's a challenge because, you know, that feeling can come, feel frustrating and
tiring, especially when someone else places their goals on you.
Right?
If it's your own choice from the get go, it's different.
It's different.
It feels different.
Yeah.
And if there are parents out there who from the get go, they're really into and really
believe in the school system and the education and all the tuition and getting into the top
schools, or perhaps that's the right thing for their family and their child, then yeah,
I think that their flow with it is going to be a lot more than the parent who doesn't
quite believe in it, but feels that they have to.
Very, very subtle difference.
Yeah.
The forced participation.
Yeah.
I think that's where I am, to be honest.
Yeah, I want to talk to you.
Yeah, so what were you talking about?
We went into that because we were talking about what burnout stage zero looks like,
the picture of success where it's high achievement and there is a lot of motivation and the drive
is high.
You know, the optimism is high and the ability is actually high.
So that type of personality, you know, requires that understanding that how to take care of
yourself, how to, you know, again, align with yourself because you can be very successful
achieving other people's goals.
And then you get to the state of disillusionment very, very quickly.
Yeah.
So to always align back with yourself.
Yeah.
You mentioned Ashwagandha, which I love.
Are there any other types of adaptogens or supplements that women can start taking to
just give them that little bit of an edge to help them feel better rather than, I guess,
the glass of wine?
Yeah, that's right.
I love you asked that question because herbs are a nice extra to have when your body is
already functioning.
It's just like with plants and fertilizers, right?
Your question to me was like asking, oh, what fertilizers are great.
My question back, are you giving the plant soil?
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Now back to the show.
Right?
Are you giving the plant soil and the basic nutrients?
Because one in three, and actually in the women that ask for me for help, half of them
or more than half of them have a nutrient deficiency.
And these are basic nutrients.
This is iron.
Wow.
You know, this is folate, right?
This is vitamin D, sunshine, magnesium.
Okay.
So there's a list that I repeatedly find and there's only a list of five.
We don't have to test all the vitamins.
I think you just named four.
Yeah.
Wait, what was the other one then?
Zinc.
The balance of zinc with copper as well, which is what I teach.
So I found that in my life as a GP, as well as a functional medicine practitioner is that
I only needed to look into these and create such change.
70% of people that came through my clinic didn't have to come back again because they
would just fix these and they'd know what to do.
The body would know what to do.
Their body would just heal from the things that they kind of like circled and listed
as symptoms and they'd go away.
And then it's the 30% that I would go deeper into functional medicine work or integrative
medicine work with them, with the gut issues, autoimmunity and more of the longstanding
issues.
And the everyday person, if you fix these, body heals itself.
I love that, the five key nutrients approach, because I do think there's an element of in
medicine, it's so complicated.
The approach has to be complicated to be successful.
But what you're saying is as long as you look at these five key nutrients first, it's a
70% chance that you may be successful.
You may feel better.
And I think that gives a glimmer of hope to women who are like, this is too complicated
an approach for me.
This is my starting point with all my patients.
And I found that it really gave them a lot of energy boost and a lot of calm.
And they stuck with any further work that they needed to do.
Because by the time you come and seek help from a doctor or a practitioner, you're tired.
You are like losing focus, your brain fogged.
And so for some of my clients, they come find me as a first step, great.
But many people have cycled through doctors and specialists and practitioners and whatever
else.
Having not even had these tests done, or having had the tests done because the doctor obliged,
but not having them looked at in an optimal range, or maybe they have looked at it in
an optimal range, but haven't supplemented efficiently or long enough or with the right
dose.
And lastly, haven't been told how you're going to come off these supplements by tweaking
your diet and your lifestyle.
So there are all these steps missing.
And I'm like, what's going on here?
So it's not just about testing.
I can just tell my colleagues and my doctor colleagues, hey, just test for these and then
I'll be good.
Like, it'll get you one step, but there are five steps to how to really create vibrancy,
which is not being on supplements, not needing the ashwagandha and the rhodiola and even
the multivitamins, I dare say, to function.
Because optimally, your body is welcoming food into your body.
Your body is digesting everything really well.
You don't have to eat so much of everything.
You have all the nutrients you need and all the macros and the micros.
So that is what I actually decided.
Listen, if I'm taking through all my patients on this, how can I turn this into a course?
Doctors were not listening too much to me.
They were busy enough doing the busy work.
And I was like, all right, well, let me see how much people want to know.
And seriously, moms, coaches, like a whole host of them were like, oh my God, can you
teach us, please?
And so I launched it in 2020 when everyone suddenly was online and everyone suddenly
wanted to learn about how to improve your health and therefore your immunity improving.
And so I called it Kickstart Your Immunity.
And within Kickstart Your Immunity, we go through all these steps of what tests to request
for with your doctor, any doctor.
They're not functional medicine expensive tests.
They're regular doctory tests that labs know how to do very cheaply.
It's just doctors don't ask for them enough.
How to read them.
Here's a cheat sheet.
Read them and then follow the instructions of what to do depending on the reading that
comes back.
Here are the list of supplements that you want to choose from.
Here's how much to take.
Here are the ones that are great forms of supplements.
This is the kind of magnesium to take.
Take glycinate, for example, or citrate.
And don't take magnesium oxide, for example, because none of that's really going to get
into your body.
So that education around that makes us savvy consumers.
And we take the responsibility into our own hands to be super healthy so that we don't
have to keep seeking the medical profession for help.
And frankly, will the medical profession tell you what to eat and how to care for your body?
No, it's like come to me when you're almost dying and I'll help you.
Yeah, so I can give you this sponsored medication that I'm making a grip cash off of.
I say that as someone who co-owns a clinic and is in the medical profession.
My husband's in the medical profession.
So I know the game.
Yeah, it's like that, right?
And it serves a purpose.
Don't get me wrong.
Like I really do require that my clients who are coaching with me, I'm like, hey, I'm going
to give you high level stuff.
You need to do your GP stuff.
You need to go and get a friendly GP.
And the thing is most GPs are beginning to realize that they're not the authoritarian
GP-ing and doctoring is not going to get you anywhere these days.
I mean, people are empowered, which is awesome.
Yeah.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, most people are deficient in magnesium and
it's not, well, I guess it could be that they're not eating enough.
But is it all said because it's just not being absorbed because of the nutrients they are
taking in?
Again, correct me again if I'm wrong, but is it, you know, if you eat too many grains,
it blocks the absorption of the magnesium in the body?
Oh yeah, there is that talk about how grains can be nutrient blockers.
But I think that the effect of it is minute.
Okay.
Compared with magnesium washing out in our pee when we drink coffee, when we're stressed,
stressed people just contain more magnesium in their pee versus their bodies.
Interesting.
Please don't tell me I have to stop drinking coffee because I love coffee.
Well, well, you can take magnesium, right?
That's fair enough.
That's a supplement I may need to continue then in terms of not giving up caffeine.
You can make, yeah, shameless plug.
I mean, I founded the Sleep Lab to formulate pure 100% magnesium glycinate in pharmaceutical
grade.
And I also make sure that they're fine ground because sickest patients kind of need to open
the capsule and use them.
Children can open the capsule and use them and they absorb super quickly without all
the additives and the preservatives.
Like, that's a good one for us over 40 to keep as a daily habit because you take it
one night, you feel like your muscle tension goes away and I feel like you can catch the
sleepy bug a bit quicker, right?
You stay asleep and you're refreshed a little bit better, but you take it over months, you
increase your bone density.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Okay.
And your hormonal health and your detoxification abilities.
Like I said about the soil, magnesium is so basic and how can most of us be lacking it?
It's ludicrous.
It's part of the, you know, you mentioned soil.
So if someone went out into some grounding and actually went out without shoes on, can
that help or not as much as, you know, I'm hoping?
Yeah.
A grounding is so good.
I mean, that's how we reconnect with ourselves and reduce our inflammation levels and we
then don't rinse through our supplements as quickly when you are more connected with nature,
when you're more connected with yourself and you're just living a little bit more calmly,
authentically, you're not going to rinse through, for example, the magnesium as quickly.
You're not going to rinse through your iron as quickly.
Yeah.
So in that way it helps.
But if you're deeply deficient, like most people are, then it requires that testing
and that supplementing.
Some people skip the testing because they have an idea and then they go out to the pharmacy,
to like Guardian Pharmacy or the, you know, the retail shops to pick up a supplement and
whatnot.
Yeah.
But you don't really know what you're treating by that point.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah.
What's your dosing?
What's your frequency?
Correct.
But grounding is a great tool.
Like going for a swim in the sea just like cures all my problems almost.
Yeah.
Other than the looks you get from people like, who's that crazy one walking around with no
shoes on?
Yeah.
What's she doing?
No, we should make that a norm.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about burnout, right?
A lot of the burnout coming from work stress, right?
From career pressures, from school pressures.
But I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about one of the pressures that I think
is increasingly facing women that are trying to conceive at older ages and that's fertility
pressure.
And that is the pressure that we put on ourselves to have a baby.
And the reality is it is harder to have a baby later in life.
And those fertility pressures tend to feel more urgent when you're approaching 40 and
you're thinking about fertility for the first time or you're thinking about even secondary
infertility, right?
So how do you work with women that are experiencing kind of a self-imposed level of stress from
their fertility journeys?
Oh, it's a big question, isn't it?
I mean, that is a tough place to be, definitely.
And actually, I find that it's a result of being maybe disconnected to the fact that
actually in older, more third world countries, people are having babies a lot earlier and
then looking at career.
But a societal setup is just like do your career, get your degree.
And you can't just get your degree.
You've got to get somewhere because there's always an internship and there's always something
to achieve and something to achieve.
And you put it off and you forget about your biology and you forget about your true needs
and you put it aside.
And then you wake up to your true needs and it's like, hey, time's passed.
That's a hard pill to swallow.
Yeah, you can't get time back.
You cannot.
Especially when it refers to your fertility.
So it feels very unfair to the woman because she's suddenly like, what?
But what's happened is that perhaps it could be like, oh, have I lost my connection with
myself for a while and I look at it and it's too late?
That's really, really hard.
But having said that, if we've been taking care of ourselves and we know how to take
care of ourselves, literally, it can be the best time.
And it's not a absolute 100% no.
Okay, good.
I like to hear that as an older mom.
It's not a no.
You just need to be real wise about it, but also not to be harsh on yourself about it.
And that's why I mentioned about the society and the conditioning and the stuff that we're
trying to unpick about.
It's not an individual problem and I don't want the individual to have to shoulder it
quietly because I do in the consultation room really see like, really the woman has just
taken it on and never ever spoken about it to anybody else and felt shame about it.
I'm like, this is not your fault.
Yeah.
But you got to be real smart about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
I had a client who I was speaking to who's struggling with a lot of issues.
I'm pretty sure she's got high cortisol levels.
And at one point I mentioned to her, what about seeing a functional doctor?
Because then we can sort of get to the sort of root cause of everything.
And her response was, I went to go see a functional doctor, but the form was super long.
She wanted to know how I was born, whether I was breastfed.
And she said, I just don't have time for that.
What would you say to somebody who feels like the functional approach is too much?
Functional medicine is a term that we have all been familiar with only in the last five
years.
Yeah.
Cause the Institute of functional medicine have marketed it well, which is really awesome.
Because before that I was like, what do I even call this stuff?
Integrative holistic.
My mentors who have been doing it since the sixties have also gone through like several
names for it.
Ecological medicine is one of them.
Integral medicine, a lot of stuff, right?
Anyways, so functional medicine as it's now called has a particular method and is just
one of my tools in a bunch of things that I use.
And one of the things that kind of, when your question came up to me, that made me kind
of think, Hey, actually functional medicine also has this bad rep of like big intake forms,
big bunch of blood tests, $2,000 worth of blood testing.
I want to know, I want to know what your hormones are doing and you're going to go a Dutch test
and you're going to do the whole host of a food intolerance test and this test, that
test before I even see you.
That's a business too, right?
I mean, we're complaining about the medical industry and how they run their business.
This kind of way is it really needed?
So that's how some people run it.
And therefore that's how functional medicine also has a bad reputation for being expensive,
very expensive.
But, you know, doctors, I believe can learn some skills in functional medicine and really
apply it with pragmatism very well.
And it need not be expensive.
And then when you come to coaching, Oh yeah, I mean, that's where like, you know, I coach
so that we don't have to run the functional medicine tests.
I coach so that we have them, but I can pull on them as needed.
But I don't have to buy the most recommend the most expensive supplements to you.
We have a chat about it and I'm like, these are available to you.
But do you really want to be using them as a crutch all the time?
Or do you want to finally look at your sleep and haunt that and see again how much you
need to spend?
Yeah, I love it.
I love that you empower your clients to make choices about how far they want to go into
that supplement world, how far they want to go into functional medicine, right?
That lifestyle approaches can still in many ways be the solution.
Oh yeah, for reals.
For reals.
Well, we are wrapping up here, but I thank you so much for your insight, Cheryl.
I have one last question for you that we've been asking all of our guests here on the
40s formula.
And it is, what is your 40s formula?
If you had a few choice pieces of information to share with women in their 40s about how
they can thrive and feel their best, what would that look like?
It definitely is not buying into the decline because women have phases of life where cyclical,
we've got seasons, right?
We've got the growing up season, we've got the mothering season, and then we've also
got the wise woman season at the end, you know?
And it's a different one.
We contribute to society, we're going to contribute to society differently, but that requires
a maturation and that requires a new set of skills sometimes, right?
And I'm not there yet.
I'm right at the beginning.
So I'm actually considering that 40 is not an aging process.
It's the beginning of the next phase.
It's like a rebirth.
I love that.
Yeah, I like that too.
You know?
Beginning of a new chapter.
Right.
Try again.
We're still young enough.
Yeah, try again.
Yeah, let's do this again.
And it's going to be really different and it's going to really break us apart to rebuild,
right?
But I'm here to help.
Like, you know, there's so much help around these days about, and a lot of people are
also being a little bit more proactive with their, I love it.
I'm meeting so many people who are doing this right.
And kind of catching themselves also prior to 40.
I'm working with people who are 35 who are so hyper aware of what's coming up, you know?
But never too late to start.
And of course, with me, I like to be efficient.
I'm a bit lazy.
I'm lazy.
I'm just like laziness is a good thing because it's caused me to be so efficient with how
I spend my time.
You know, I want to do the 20% and get 80% of the results.
What's the thing I'm going to do?
And that's kind of the base of how I think and how I plan the strategy for people and
my clients.
And I put out courses in that manner as well.
Less time, more results.
We are all about it.
Thank you so much again, Dr. Cheryl, for being with us.
We are so, so happy to have your insights and have you here with us on the 40s Formula.
Thank you.
I'm so grateful that you invited me.
Thank you.
This is Paul, our editor.
He's a 25 year old unmarried Singaporean guy listening to the ramblings of 12 older women
on everything from menopause to weightlifting to sex.
So Paul, what's your thoughts on today's conversation?
So I'm actually a composer, arranger, and I handle mostly post-production work on media-based
stuff and on different mediums such as this podcast, I guess.
I grew up in a fast-paced environment here in Singapore with all the high achieving lifestyle
stuff I guess.
So I'm easily burned out with all the nature of my work and demanding daylines.
And besides that, I'm always constantly worrying about the stress of, I guess, primarily getting
paid because I'm a broke mid-20s, fresh grad with doing freelance work.
Not saying that I'm broke exactly, but just saying that money is always a thing because
it's just the nature of the job and the work, I guess.
So in a way, the topic of burnout relates to me pretty closely and I don't really have
a fixed way of handling burnout, but I guess for me, I drink alcohol, I guess, because
hey man, I'm just 20s chilling.
All right, anyway, not health advice, but just be healthy, I guess.
All right, stay safe.
See you guys.
Bye bye.
Chill.
Hey guys, did you know that you can leave us questions and comments on FanList?
That's right.
On fanlist.com slash the 40s formula, you can leave us a voice note where you can ask
us anything, leave us your feedback or just say hi.
A listener also reached out to us and said this.
Well done.
I can't wait for the next one.
I feel like I need more now.
I need to binge listen to more.
You got me hooked.
I'm addicted and I will definitely be forwarding this on to my friends and family.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, listener.
It's so lovely to hear that you really enjoyed this and thanks so much for forwarding this
on to people who you feel can appreciate the content too.
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conversations with inspiring guests.
Bye.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, you guys found him.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, hello, I'm Paul.
The studio, the studio actually did help us find Paul.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Right?
Yeah.
Was it the high five or was it someone else?
I can't remember.
Somebody recommended you.
Siobhan, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So somebody recommended you.
What's like your, you know, your job.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I am actually a full time freelancer.
My primary domain is actually composition, like music and stuff.
I'm an musician.
And I, and this is a bit more of like a side thing, actually, like podcasting or recording
for podcasting and post-production because I have recording.
Yeah.
And he wrote our podcast jingle.
So when you hear the forties formula jingle, that's all Paul.
Yep.
Really?
Okay.
Wow.
You guys are like, I don't know.
Okay.
You're doing this properly.
Yeah.
Let's be another one.
Properties.
Cause someone else made that comment to me.
You say, Oh, it's proper.
I'm like, yeah.
No, no, no.
Cause like I, we, I look for jingles too.
And we like kind of do a royalty free music.
Yeah.
Like that.
There's also a royalty free music.
Or you can make a jingle, you know?
Well, we thought we'd utilize Paul's skills and which we didn't even know.
I want a personal jingle.
I never walk into the room.
I want one like, okay, cool.
Yeah.
That can be like your side side gig is like podcasting and then also music for podcasting.
Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
All right.