Dilyana Maliva's Guide to Embracing Menopause with Grace and Grit

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. My name is Wendy Manganero and I am the host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us and if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. So sit back, relax and learn from the practical to the woo-woo. How did best take care of you? Have a great day, stay blessed and leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much. Hi everyone. Today we're talking about thriving during menopause, and I have as a special guest Dilyana Maliva. I'm going to read her bio and then we'll get right into the show. Dilyana is a former lawyer, a yoga and breath work teacher, a sleep expert, international speaker and holistic menopause coach. She's the founder and CEO of menopause support Academy and the deep, breathful sleep formula online program. She has her own podcast, menopause made easy, a podcast designed to provide you with tips and strategies to navigate the changes in a woman's body, mind and spirit with more grace and ease. Dilyana helps women like you get restorative sleep they want and need to live a happier, healthier life. Dilyana is on a mission to give women the natural path to thriving by reducing the impact of menopause and period mentalism on the body, mind and spirit. Her mission is for women to feel safe to fully express themselves and take care of themselves, to live a life from their power, passion and purpose. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for having me. My pleasure, thank you. So we'll get right into the questions, because I'm a woman in that perimenopausal state and it's changed my viewpoint on many things. What is happening? I'd love to know what does thriving during menopause mean to you.

Speaker 2: 1:58

That's mean that you feel good about yourself, most and foremost in the first place, that you accept the changes and you find the inner strength and power inside you to navigate through these challenges with more ease and grace. That means you find that wisdom inside you, shared with others, and really feel yourself again, because very often you tend to lose our identity, our confidence, our motivation during this changing of women's mind, body and emotions and women's life. So this period is very important the mindset, the lifestyle, the healthy lifestyle, the food, also how and when and what exactly you're doing as a movement. You need to move the bodies too, so it's a complex wellness that you need to prioritize during this journey.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Yeah, and it's an interesting thing now that I'm in it. I was at a conference when there is a woman there that I'm very friendly with we see each other every conference we go to and she was giving me these just symptoms and she's and I went to a neurologist and I've been to this and this and I'm like are you sure you're not just going through perimenopause? And she's like why hasn't anybody said anything to me? And they keep sending me to these specialists for each symptom. And I was like, oh, the world will change when you realize that. And so how often do you think that women don't realize that they may be in the start of perimenopause?

Speaker 2: 3:30

It's a very common thing. Very often Most of the women don't know that they are going through perimenopause. They don't know what's going on with their body, they don't know exactly who to go to talk and very often the women is dismissed or underserved by the official medicine and doctors. As you say, it's very correct. I can confirm with my personal experience that they don't look at you holistically, don't make the hormonal test at all, don't suggest even to go and do that, and they just don't have this caught in their treatment of perimenopause. You may need to look for alternative way to help ourselves.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Let me ask you, because this is something I had learned. And so, when you say a hormonal test, what type of test are you talking about? Are you talking about blood tests, liva tests?

Speaker 2: 4:24

It can be different. It can be saliva, it can be blood, it can be this AHRC or I'm not very sure of terminology, but it's specifically for hormones and the crudges. I think it's a specialist, but there's also natural path and some other experts who deal with this problem. I have somebody who help with the different tests that they do to see really where you are in the hormone changes. So from there you know how, what you're missing, what you have to increase, what you have to be careful with and know how to heal.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Without that you don't know what to do. And then that leads me to another question For women who are going to the tests, and they're doing just the blood tests and their doctors are going. Your hormones are fine, should they stop there? Or, if they're feeling like they're having symptoms, should they do something else?

Speaker 2: 5:13

No, they keep searching for the right person. I think that woman genicologist can understand more. The unfortunately, most of the genicologists is the men and they can understand. But it depends If you're working to find a woman genicologist who understand the hormone changes, they can help also a lot.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Yeah, and that's so important to find a doctor that actually understands. And I want to go back to it's a little bit to your experiences, because you teach women about perimenopause and menopause and how to thrive. What's been your journey, that that became important to you to teach other women how to get through this period of your life.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Exactly that. My heart was in pain when I saw so many women don't know what to do, where to go, what, what support to find and see how they suffer and how they the only things that they know. And eventually, hormone replacement therapy. My experience it was exactly when I was experiencing extremely crushing fatigue, tiredness. It was related to my RNA glands and also how to start to change the hormones and I have to start to experiencing some sleep disturbance and I can say that the stress reduction, keeping cortisol in a balanced way, is the way to start to heal yourself. What I discovered after my consultation with the doctor when they wanted to prescribe me sleeping pill or antidepressant to just take a vacation to rest. I knew that it's not the solution and with my research I it's confirmed that I'm going through perimenopause. I just start to adjust my lifestyle, my diet, my, how I wax. I start to criticize myself and my, to nurture a little bit more myself, to heal, take the self-care, take a little bit more me time and just make my soul happy and joyful, like going in the nature, speaking with friends. Have specifically moderate exercise regime, not to push too much again, to keep the cortisol level in a normal level, but still be active, don't still move the body. Hydrate, be careful what you eat exactly. Take some supplements that eventually you need to increase and some holistic herbs that can help. Also, and mainly, I find that the bread discovering the bread breeding technique helped me a lot to connect with myself, with my higher self, with the source, to keep me grounded and balanced, to bring this peace. Also help with hot flashes, with night sweats, with sleep disturbance and also energy level.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Thank you. That's a big list. I know that there's like 33 symptoms of a perimenopausm because we don't always get them at the same time, so it's hard to be like oh, that's what that is, and I know this for myself as a female entrepreneur. I hit perimenopausm and I was like why can't I work like I used to, like the brain fog and all of that. I was like I can do seven projects at once at one time and then suddenly you're like, oh, my gosh, can I just get through today? Like why is this happening? Brain fog was a big one for me, but what? And you mentioned some of them. But as a female entrepreneur, what's the originating science that maybe it's time to go see if you're in perimenopause? Is it a day-aged thing? Is it all of the physical sciences, a combination?

Speaker 2: 8:29

It's not always the age, because you can start experiencing the symptoms after 35, 38, 40. It's a very different experience for everybody. There's women who are going really easy and then they told me I'd never notice most of the symptoms. Maybe they have it, but not in some extreme state. But there's other women who start really experiencing most of the symptoms not all, but a lot of them and they need to start to find the right source. They speak with the practitioner and do these tests, as I suggest, and see if they can confirm eventually that you are going through some changes. But definitely, if you start to notice forgetfulness, brain fog, tiredness, sleep issue you're around 40, you definitely can guess that you start to go into perimenopause.

Speaker 1: 9:21

That's super helpful and it's so funny to me because I'm always like everybody's. Whatever you asked, they're like suddenly I was tired, but really it is like a whole different level. And waking up in the middle of the night, like you've never woken up in the middle of the night before, suddenly, and I had hot flashes during my pregnancy with my son and suddenly I was like, why am I getting these? And my aunt was like you could be going for perimenopause. I was like, why is this craziness? But the other thing too, and I'd love to talk to you about this I don't know generationally if we really talk about perimenopause, right, like we just don't seem to have those conversations. So do you find that when you work with women and you may or may not know the answer to this that it is similar to their parents or they start to have memories of oh yeah, my parent went through this.

Speaker 2: 10:07

Is their generation think is there? They say usually how your mother, not so much how she experienced it going, experiencing the same, but around the age she has her menopause very probably going to have, does the genetic. But our mothers and baby boomers? They didn't talk so much about this with anyone. They suffer in silence and they didn't know, probably to who to talk and what exactly to say. But around them, the family and the close friends can see the changes and the good things is nowadays it's start to be more spoken. It's kind of movement. It's create a movement that to bring this awareness to women and even to workplace that such thing exists. It's not the disease, it's not something that you need to diagnose or something. It's just a period of time that just women need to be careful with the stress or with the pressure, with what's happening with her body. They take care of herself a little bit more and also around, speak with the essentially with the significant one, with your spouse, your partner, your best friend, your family members, to understand what you experience, what kind of feeling you have, what you're going through. So, talking about this, they can understand that. You can also feel relieved that you're supported, you understood. You're not alone. The main thing is that it's essential that you don't feel alone and all this that people around you understand and find again a coach, a community, or just speak with somebody who you trust about what you experience and that is really key.

Speaker 1: 11:46

I'm actually glad that my girlfriend at the conference said something and I was like I just went through something similar. And here's what's interesting. She said to me but I went to my gynecologist and they didn't say anything to me about it and I was like, yeah, go find another one. I was like go find another one Because I think that even though it is being talked about more with women, if you're just starting that phase, you don't know, you think you're going to go to your gynecologist and they're going to explain something to you and you don't realize that they really may not have the right information.

Speaker 2: 12:18

Again, a woman may be better and then also depend from gynecologist to gynecologist. There's difference. There's some who are very aware. If you're lucky enough to find this one, they can help you to go through this journey in more East and grass. But it's not the only specialties that can help you. Acupuncturists can help a lot. Sleep and menopause experts, as me, can help with the mindset, with the movement, with the diet, with your emotions also how to deal with emotions, how to balance them. You can find nutritionists, also naturopath. There's so many experts out there who can help you to give you the right information and what to do exactly.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Absolutely, and I think that I like that you mentioned so many people, because it is like a well-rounded what is going on with me? I need help in several places I live, always to talk about. If you're going through the symptoms, right, what is like the first step or two that you've realized You're like, oh, I'm going through this, what's the first step that they can start to take to really thrive?

Speaker 2: 13:16

The first step is really acknowledge that something changed, something happened. It's a chapter of our life. It's something that's going to pass, for sure. It's a period of time that you need to deal with and then just be gentle with yourself, notice how you talk to yourself, self-talk. It's very important how you think about yourself because since this period of time, it's really needed that you love yourself, have this self-compassion, self-awareness and self-love, that you understand that your body needs a little bit extra care. You need a little bit extra nurturing care with include all wellness. But there's not one step. There's a combination of steps that you can take care of yourself. You can start journaling just to write down your feelings and how you feel, what you feel, what triggers some feelings Just journaling. Then talk with someone that you trust and then start to adjust and adapt your lifestyle. In terms of the exercise, relaxation, mindfulness, include more yoga, breathing, meditation. I suggest a combination of strength and stretch exercise, not only strengthening. You need also to gain the muscle, because you start to lose the muscle mass. You need to start to gain again. But you need to have a combination and be careful how long you do exercise, how often you do exercise and listen to your body. The main thing is just listen to your body. The body knows how to heal. You're going to tell you the best, what you need. If you need rest, just give yourself rest. If you need to walk, just walk. If you need time to relax with the good movie or music, just give yourself what you really need to nurture yourself. Take this extra mid-time you just schedule this mid-time you need. I know that you're busy. I know that you have everyday responsibilities. I know that you are under pressure. Sometimes you have elderly parents that you need, sometimes the teenagers still in our home or they leave the home and you can start experiencing the emptiness. But that's the period that you need to prioritize yourself and then think a little bit more about yourself and your need, what body you want to do, and then find the appropriate lifestyle that is best for you.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Thank you so much. I know that you have an offer for our audience.

Speaker 2: 15:42

It was 10 steps to sleep better, how to improve your lifestyle I want to do in the evening, in the morning, to improve your sleep, your energy level. But also I have another free grip from my website, menopause Support Academy, where you can start experiencing three breathing exercises that can help you with most of the symptoms too. If you don't only sleep, let's say you're not so much experienced sleep problem but you have hot flashes, you have brain fog, you have weight gain. We have other stuff going on that can help you also with the symptoms. I have a podcast in my website that they can listen to the episode to different experts. They find information that they're looking for from there too. It's called Menopause Made Easy. They can find it in menopausesupportacademycom. It's a podcast section that they can listen to some of the episodes, find a lot of resources and information there too.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Welcome, thank you. If you love what you heard today, please subscribe for more self-care tips going forward, and if you loved what Dilliana said today, please write a review. In the meantime, have a blessed and abundant week.