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🎙️ Season 4, Episode 5 – Why Stress Makes Perimenopause Symptoms Worse (and What You Can Do About It)

In this episode of Lemons and Pineapples, Emma O’Brien and her co-host, functional medicine health coach Sam Shrosbree, dive into the powerful connection between stress and perimenopause.

Many women in their 40s and 50s experience joint pain, hot flushes, insomnia, brain fog, weight gain, and anxiety — often chalked up to “just perimenopause.” But as Emma and Sam reveal, chronic stress and excess cortisol may be the real culprits behind worsening symptoms.

Together, they explore:

• 🔎 Why high stress levels throw hormones off balance
• 🍰 The “baking analogy” that makes hormone production easy to understand
• 🧠 How cortisol steal impacts sleep, mood, and brain health
• ⚖️ Why weight gain, anxiety, and brain fog are often linked to stress, not just hormones
• 🌿 Practical tools for calming your nervous system naturally
• 💤 Why stress management is just as important as diet, sleep, and exercise
• 🌳 The power of nature, breathwork, and boundaries in restoring balance

Emma also guides listeners through a short HeartMath heart-focused breathing practice, offering a taste of how simple nervous system regulation tools can create calm within minutes.

✨ If you’re tired of feeling frazzled, stuck, or told that HRT is the only option, this episode will empower you to take back control of your well-being — body, mind, and spirit.

🌟 Special Invitation: The Re-Calibration Course

Emma and Sam are launching a 6-week online course starting Monday, 1st September. 

Inside, you’ll learn:

• Sam’s four pillars of health (nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management)
• Science-backed nervous system regulation tools
• Practical, doable strategies to balance hormones naturally
• Simple daily tweaks that add up to lasting change

Learn more and sign up here 👉 www.emmaobriencoach.com/recalibration

📲 Stay Connected

• Follow Emma on Instagram: @emmaobriencoach
  
  
• Follow Sam on Instagram: @zenroom_at_thewoods
  
  
• Got questions? Reach out via DM or through the podcast page.

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.