63: Nature as Menopause Medicine with Jeff Johnson

Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast, where we discuss the menopause transition to help make everyday life a little easier for women. Hi, I'm Sonja Lovell, your host of Dare Menopause the podcast. I am a fierce menopause campaigner, but I'm also a lover of getting outdoors in nature and chats with good friends. So today, in this week's episode, I am combining two of those things. I am chatting with my very good friend, Jeff Johnson, and we're talking about the benefits of getting outdoors for menopause of women, impacts on stress, sleep and mental health. Enjoy this episode, Jeff Johnson. It is such an absolute delight to have you on Dare Menopause Welcome.

Thank you very much. Love to be here.

Jeff, you're a great friend of mine. We have been friends for way too many years to talk about. You're on the other side of the world. You are in sunny California, although you've already told me it's not sunny today. You're here in your capacity as host of Nature Junkie, which is a brand new podcast that you have recently launched, and we're going to be talking about some of the topics that you chat about on Nature Junkie and how you came to launch this podcast.

Thank you, Sonya. It's such an honor to be here and just also really stoked watching you build your podcast and everything that you're doing from afar. It's really cool. So thank you. And a chance to connect with another audience as well. Being in Australia, not in the US, that's awesome. So yeah, a little background on me. I mean I think I'll tell it in the way that leads to Nature Junkie, which is. I was fortunate enough, lucky enough, like many Australians actually, to get exposed to surfing really early on in life And, like most of us, it grabbed me more than the other way around. Surfing just took me. I think. There's a Jacques Cousteau quote that goes something like once the sea casts its spell of wonder, you're in it forever, or cast its net of wonder, you're in it forever. And that was true with me for surfing. I just loved it, and I sometimes joke that every surfer can remember their first board, and I do remember my first board, of course, but I remember my first wave that just stuck with me in such an indelible way And I'm going to describe it because it's really what set the hook, which was it was only a one to two foot day, so less than a meter, but it was just a crisp fall day. The sun was sparkling off of the wave, it was offshore wind, so it was glassy and sort of groomed And I didn't do anything special on the wave other than go from point A to point B. But what was seared into my soul was just the feeling of all of those natural elements coming together And that really spurred me to chase waves all around the world and also to chase mountains to many different locations and do everything outside I could, out in nature, because I just understood on a very natural, felt, direct experience level nature is powerful. We need to listen. Then, later on, i ended up studying nutrition science. Actually, i have a couple of degrees in nutrition science, so I had a science part of my brain and I have a creative part of my brain because I work in brand strategy and the natural products industry, so also marketing innovation.

And can I add, you're also an awesome photographer.

Oh, thanks, yeah, I forgot, i appreciate it. I like to play is the simple way to put it. And what I've discovered along the way was I always knew there was this powerful, you know, emotive experience from nature connection, and so therefore chased it most of my life. But what I did not realize was that there was this treasure trove of science sitting there that backed up that this stuff is powerful, especially from a mental health perspective, and I've spent the better part of the last handful of years diving into the science of it, and here's what I realized The first. All how that hit me was one you know, just, oh my gosh, there's a mountain of evidence here that nobody really knows about And we sort of dismiss, not because it's not credible, just because we think other tech and other things are so much more powerful.

It was sexy Yeah.

It was a bit more sexy and we just get caught up in the latest and greatest of the day. That was the first ah-ha. The second ah-ha was for I'm sure many of your listeners have delved into the world of sleep science, right, and circadian biology, because you know, if you don't get your sleep right, it's hard to regulate anything else in your mind, body, spirit. And what I realized when I dug into the science was oh my goodness, this is just like sleep science in a way that there's all this evidence sitting there and people haven't put it into practice yet. That's, in a lot of ways, what birth. nature junkie radio is the podcast and nature junkie is the brand website and Instagram and everything. It's mostly the podcast at this stage, But yeah, that's kind of the tour.

Yeah, cool And I love that is such a beautifully emotive journey that you've gone on from. you know I was there with you on that wave when you just described that, even though you know I'm not a surfer and I'm pretty sure there's plenty of my well, i am, i've surfed. That's not true. I'm giving myself some knocking myself down a bit there, i have surfed Hang on a second. But I'm not. You know I'm not someone that surfs every day and I haven't surfed for many years, but you know I was there on that wave with you when you just described that through into. You know, understanding the benefits of nature on mental health And that's, you know, one of the reasons that we're here today to talk about. You know, that powerful impact of just allowing ourselves to be in nature with nature for the benefit of our mental health and our overall well being, and the impacts that trickle down into all aspects of our life. And you know, with an audience that is, you know, women, predominantly 40 plus, that are in their perimenopausal and menopausal years. You know, this is where I knew that we would have a great opportunity to talk about. You know, we spend so much time, i feel, talking about treating symptoms and we get where you know, really caught up. And you know you talked about it tech and science and you know medic medicating and you know what treatment options are available. But sometimes it can be just as simple as stepping back into something that has actually been out there waiting for us all this time and we just need to tap into our natural resources And that's the stuff that I'm hoping we can dive into a little bit today, but with a science background, to really back up the reasons why, you know, deep diving into nature can be so good for us. And you have this great expression that I love, which is microdosing nature, and that's what I really want to dive into, because not all of us have hours and hours of time to spend out in the surf or out bushwalking or in the mountains, you know. But when we, when you learn the concept of microdosing, which you teach so well, it becomes so much more doable and the impacts can be just as powerful.

Yeah, i want to. I want to first just touch on one of the one of the mental barriers I think we artificially put in place and we kind of all fall prey to that the mic. I'm going to come to microdosing nature and why I've incorporated that into what we're doing. You know, i think when you think of barriers to nature connection, there are many. in fact, i have the four horsemen we can get into that I'm playing with as a concept, but one is that we think it's too extreme. You know, this is the, this is the one of the four horsemen, is just our own mind right, we put our self limiting beliefs there. But one of the things we do is go Oh, i have to be Alex Arnold and free solo El Capitan. You know, we see all these adventure documentaries And I listened to the episode you have I'm blanking on her name Did.

I Yeah, Allie Pepper, who was on a previous episode, mountaineer, talking about her experience of menopause and the impact it's had on her ability to to to participate in her sport. But yeah, that, that thinking that we need to go and do those big grand adventures. Sorry, segway there. I just got a little bit excited because I was reminded that Allie is literally about to summit Mount Everest.

Well, i'm going to check my Instagram after to check in on her. That's so awesome And it was inspiring And I love, i love people like that And I watch those. You know documentaries of people like that. I'm going to go do that, but the reality is I'm probably going to go for a walk in my neighborhood. Yeah, i'm going to go for a surf down the street. I think that's true of a lot of us, and I also just want to be mindful of the fact that some people live in places where there isn't as much kind of wild, raw nature and you have to seek it out a little bit more. So I do. I mean, this is one of the things with any science really that I get kind of geeked about is. I love to read all that stuff and get into it, but I want to make it as applicable as possible on the day to day And for anyone that's ever read, you know, atomic habits by James Clear or BJ Fogg's work, tiny habits from Stanford, anything about developing new, healthy behaviors. It often doesn't happen in these really grand gestures. That often happens in the little teeny things we do every day, day in, day out. So microdosing nature was the concept that I came up with to try to make this accessible for people and help them realize, remind them that they don't have to go climb Everest. I mean, if you want to go for your life, i will be in awe of you. But more, how do you make a practical day to day? And that's what microdose nature is all about Small, frequent doses of nature, and it has a big impact too. So you think of little things like sunlight exposure, even in you know your listeners would probably be familiar with this and anyone listens to Huberman Lab podcast, for example, the neuroscience around circadian biology. Even just you know, two to 10 minutes in the morning of natural sunlight exposure can make a huge difference on your energy levels through the day, sleep at night And it perpetuates that cycle of good. But also even just five, 10, 20 minute walks have been shown repeatedly in the research to be huge benefits to mental health on many different levels stress, anxiety, cognition. So microdosing nature is powerful.

I like to talk, when I get the opportunity, about the silver linings that came out of the whole COVID pandemic situation. Now, you know, here in Australia we were, and in different parts of Australia we experienced different levels of lockdowns, you know, different to what you guys in the States experienced. I think one of the lessons that I believe so many people learned as a result of being, you know, pretty much locked in our houses was how important getting out for a daily walk was. So, you know, there are a lot of, you know, funny memes that went around about. You know, here I am after my stupid fucking day, you know, mental health fucking walk, you know, because that was what, that was what people did. It was the only time you could leave your house and at certain periods of time was to go out and get your daily walk. And it became the you know. But it was so important for people's mental health to get out and do that, that daily walk. And, you know, i think, as much as everybody was making fun of it, there was also that realization of how important it was.

Yeah, i'll take that as an opportunity to talk about one of the indirect benefits of nature. I mean, getting nature connection outside outdoors is just all the physical exercise, for example walk, run, climb, surf, whatever your thing is. You know it's not in the research, there's not a direct benefit there, but it is indirect in that you're getting all those exercises essentially So, and that can come in many forms right The cardio parts, the weight bearing. Obviously you know bone density is a big thing, so that matters your agility, especially if you're out on trails. And here's another sort of sideways, indirect one in the research is the social factor. So obviously if you're out on the trail or out at some green space, walking, whatever, you're more likely to run into friends and neighbors. Now I can't promise that they're all the ones that you want to run into, but you're more likely to say hello, have a chat, and that actually then strengthens, you know, community bond too. So that's another just sort of indirect one of nature connection outside.

Yeah, I like that. that's really good, And I also think it's often an opportunity to make new friends as well.

Yeah, perfect, yeah, yeah.

So let's talk a little bit about the mental health benefits, because I want to really tie this into my audience And one of the reasons that I felt that there was this great opportunity for us to have a conversation was really when it comes to mental health. So let's talk about the things like the direct sunlight into the eyes. You know, when you and I had a chat prior to recording this podcast, you talked about not just being out in the great outdoors exercising, but actually sitting down and just kind of being Yeah, yeah, i don't want to lose sight of that.

I mean, there's just a very I'm going to come at a couple of angles that are not air quoting, performance oriented, because it's easy for us these days to go there and that's all cool And there's good research on that, but let's not lose sight of the value of art and beauty and aesthetics and just appreciating that. That's one angle. It's perfectly OK to watch the sunset and go damn, that's fucking beautiful. And you don't have to go like what's my performance going to be tomorrow based on? I go to both places, but I don't want to lose sight of, like, sometimes it's just beautiful, you know, and there's a lot of beauty out there. And then two is that this is similar where there's some overlap from some of the benefits of meditation, especially from, if you talk to meditation masters of varying kinds on just them, letting go of the performance side of it too, and saying, look, this is an opportunity to unclench everything in your being and just let go and be, is in the present moment as possible and tap into that thing that's always there. So there's that. And then, yes, absolutely, there's some cool physiology happening when you are entraining your circadian biology more energy through the day, getting your cortisol and other hormones to go on a sort of proper curve for the day, enabling you to fall asleep when you should fall asleep, and get good quantity and good quality of sleep as well. So lots of benefits there.

And do you mind talking us through the you know you touched on earlier. I don't know how many of my audience are likely to be listening to Hoobam in lab. I know I find him to every now and again when I've got to spend five hours to listen to one of his lectures. But you know, look, he's not to everyone's taste and he can be very highbrow, but he does. he does talk about some interesting topics, and the one topic that I find that we've touched on here really briefly, but I'd love to kind of expand on that a little bit is that exposure to sunlight. Can you talk us through that a little bit?

Well, first I have to say I'm not a neuroscientist and I'll probably get some of it wrong, but in general I'll talk high level about what I understand to be happening. So when light comes through your eyes in the morning, you know what you want to do is ideally as soon as you wake up in the morning, let's say within the first hour of waking, and then also around. I call it, you know, periment, that's funny, perimentopausal, but peri, sunset, around sunset Those two times a day are essentially the two really strong anchors to help set your circadian rhythm In the morning. This is really key. I mean, i don't stare directly at the sun, but definitely be outside, not inside your house or your car or whatever. You need to be outside. The reason for that is when you have windows, that blocks the sunlight more than you think and it sort of makes it, i think, roughly. From what I understand, it takes about twice as long to get the same benefit. So just get outside And don't stare directly at the sun. The sun is bouncing all over the place and coming into your eyeballs, which needs to happen. Two to 10 minutes is what I've understood from the research and not to get super technical, but what happens around those times of day when you have low solar angle, meaning the sun is low in the sky the contrast of the whether you see them exactly or not the blues and the yellows. That's actually the cue for your brain to say, hey, it's time to do this. Now in the body And lots of things flow from this, so seemingly things you wouldn't expect, like when you start to feel hungry for breakfast or lunch or dinner, it starts to cue things around metabolism.

So that's going to be obviously impacting hormones 100%. Yep.

So, and then similar around sunset just being out and about around that time, let's say plus or minus an hour from sunset you can start to get those color shifts and that will help anchor. And the evening one is particularly important. The morning one too is related for sleep, because that's a cue to your body to say hey, okay, sunset is around this time. Therefore, i should start to kick on melatonin, which is going to cue sleepiness to go to sleep at a certain time. So yeah, for off on those anchors. then it starts to shift everything And that's when we get wonky with our sleep. So I'm very much oversimplifying, but that's sort of the gist.

No, and that's perfect, that's. That was kind of what I was looking for, so I'm going to oversimplify it even further, which is it's a little bit like we're going to warm up with the, you know, like, instead of warming up with coffee and going down with wine, we're going to warm up with, you know that, that sunlight in the morning that you know within about an hour of waking and then you know, triggering that cool down kind of mode with that sun, sunset kind of light. Now with the morning. I've read you may not know the answer to this, i could be putting you on the spot here but I've read differing or conflicting information around the impact of getting that early morning light you know, kind of into your eyeballs but not directly looking directly into the sun for it, before you look at the screen on your phone. What is the impact around that? Do you have any any kind of info on that?

Yeah, i've seen a couple of things around this. I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're talking about, but I'll share what I know about this or understand. One is a study I heard mentioned from Dr Matthew Walker who wrote Why We Sleep beautiful book about sleep. If anyone's trying to figure out sleep or better circadian rhythm, start there. He mentioned that I'm going to come at it from two different levels One from light and how light impacts our brain and bodies, and then two around stress. So one of the light factor is you know you get blue light through your screens with. there's a lot of confusion around this is blue light is perfectly fine during the day. You mostly just don't want it at night. You know anytime after dark and you're getting blue light in your face. that's screwing up your the phasing of your melatonin kicking in for sleep. So that's the problem there. during the day It's fine because there's blue light in natural sunlight. So you know, if you don't have access to it, blue lights actually fine in the morning. However, here's the tricky part of this And this is the part I understood from Matt Walker around stress is if if I won't judge anybody, but if you're one of the types of people. I've never done this, by the way. if you're one of the types of people- who.

I wish you could have seen Jeff space when he said that.

If you're, if you're the type of person who you let's say, you use your phone for your alarm clock or whatever, and you wake up and the first thing you do, before you even get out of bed, is look at your phone and you're checking emails or your Instagram feed or whatever.

You may or may not be married to somebody that does that.

Yeah, I've seen it before, So not. What's happening there is. It creates a sense of it's called anticipatory anxiety. So you're setting your nervous system up to say, Hey, what's the stressful, first stressful thing I have to deal with today? And what that does? it actually has a back ripple effect, like a backwards ripple effect to impact your sleep quality that night before. Yeah, So it's a generally good habit to get out of. And then one other thing to clear up confusion around the morning, sunlight or anytime during the day is a lot of people think, Oh, it's a cloudy day, you know, or it's raining. Well, all the what's the difference? I'm going to be inside. It's a huge difference. Go outside even if it's raining, snowing, gray. It doesn't matter That gray, snowy. I guess you get snow in parts of Australia. But if it's that crap weather, let's say it is still far brighter than inside your house. You can get little apps that measure lumens to sort of sprinkle the light And if you want to do a test, you can look, show it inside your house and then go outside in a gray day. Oh, that's cool. It makes a huge impact. Just go outside. Put a coat on whatever you need to do. Go outside.

Yeah, okay, cool, Jeff. were there any other kind of points that you wanted us to talk about? What other kind of topics did we want to hit here today?

Yeah, i think you know. One thing I'd love to cover are actually two things. One is what's called attention restoration theory, and then two is a little bit of mythbusting around getting outside versus truly connecting with nature on a deeper level. So one is attention restoration theory. So this is research that's come out over the last 30 years. Really, in understanding this And it's not, you know, 100% understood at the mechanistic level, but we understand this phenomenon happens when we go outside And I think everyone listening will relate to this. Let's say you're, you know, at work, stressing whatever you know, really focused on some task for a long period of time, and you go outside, take a walk or just get outside for a while and all of a sudden you de-stress, your brain feels a little bit fresher, you come back in. So that phenomenon has a name. It's called the attention restoration theory, and here's what here's the gist of it basically is there's two different types of attention. So we have direct attention and indirect attention, and with directed attention, that's you know. Let's say you're, you're at your desk and you're focused on something very intently for a long time. We've all been there where it's. You get to a point where you just feel maxed out and your brain's not quite working the way that it should. And we go for a walk, let's say, out in nature. I go spend 10, 20 minutes, it doesn't take a long time Out in nature. What's happening actually is we go into this place of it's called some people refer to it as soft fascination We're taking in the landscape more more generally. You know we're not, you know, necessarily like super focused, like we can walk, talk, we can sort of just generally take in the landscape, notice bird sounds and flowers, and maybe it smells and things like that, and what's happening is it's actually allowing the brain to restore your ability to take on directed attention again. So you might notice, when you take that break, you go for that walk and you come back to whatever you were doing before. Your brain's actually stronger than it was before, your fresher and think again, you can make better decisions. So that's a little bit about what's happening when you go for a walk or you go spend time in nature.

And when you say, go spend time in nature, would, if you were. Perhaps, let's say you were somebody at work in the city, but you've got a green park close by. Does that count? Go out? and just spend time in some green space. You know it doesn't have to be out at the beach or, you know, in a bush. You know, here in Australia we might go out into a national park or something like that. It can just be some green space.

Yes, Cool, You're perfectly segue into the next thing that I was going to bring up. So which is what does it mean to be out and connect with nature? What qualifies what doesn't? There's a lot of unknowns around I'm going to say the dose. There's a lot of definitive evidence, I would say, around things that are in the 10 to 20 minute camp, that are very convincing and we know work. But some newer research over the last handful of years, actually by English researcher, British researcher named Miles Richardson, out of the UK basically, And what he's discovered is this concept called noticing nature, And so this starts to chip away a little bit at the, I guess, conventional wisdom of like, well, just get outside and you'll feel better. That is true. But if you want to take it to the next level, like this is sort of if you want to, you know up your mastery a little bit and maybe even get more out of it is. He has this really basic concept that they researched and found awesome results and it's noticed three good things in nature. So I like the practicality of this because you can be out on a walk and you might. I did just before we talked And I noticed that we've had this crazy spring super bloom here with all these flowers, and I noticed they're starting to change and fade away a little bit. I noticed, you know, sage wafting through the air and I noticed a few different types of plants that I hadn't seen before in this canyon that we live in. So if you're in the city, it could make it a little bit of a hunt to try to pay attention to where you may find. You're walking the sidewalk and there's some cool little weed growing out. It sounds silly. It actually works, is, you know? notice where nature is trying to creep through the cracks, you know. Or, especially in a city, you can notice at different times a day how the light is falling on buildings and creating shadow patterns and things like that. Even if you're in a city, pause and try to get quiet for a moment and see if you can pick out bird sounds or things like that that you might, you know, normally sort of just tune out, Yeah. So, wherever you're, at first just kind of come into awareness, take stock of what is available to you and then see if you can notice three good things. I love that. Yeah, it's a good one. Huh, It's nice and easy.

Yeah, yeah, that's super cool And so simple.

Super simple.

Yeah, super simple It's very practical.

You know it's practical, accessible. Partly I can't. I noticed the research because no pun intended because my dad works with. He volunteers at an alternative high school and he was asking me what are some things I can do with the students? And at first I'd said, well, just get them outside So you can for a walk around campus and let them be outside First of all. But then I caught myself and went, wow, okay, push it further, give them something to do, you know so yeah, yeah it works. Oh, what I failed to mention is in the study. What they showed is this people had increased nature connectedness, greater reported greater happiness, life satisfaction. And here's the cool part not just this study but so many studies show beyond the mental health impact for nature connection. It tends to bring out in us more pro environment behaviors. So you know, like maybe picking up some trash around the neighborhood, getting involved in some nature, or like an environmental nonprofit, or you know, maybe adding more wildlife friendly things into your garden, stuff like that. So yeah, we need way more of that.

So, yeah, i think that's really awesome And I think you know bringing it back to you know the audience that is most likely to be listening into my podcast today And I hope that they share this episode far and wide with anybody that will benefit from listening into our conversation and these you know amazing benefits that they can get from such simple changes to the way that they, you know experience being out of nature themselves. You know the benefits to the mental health. I loved the, i think, when I really resonated from you know, thinking about my audience and a woman that's perhaps perimenopausal menopausal she's overwhelmed, she's, you know, struggling with a bit of brain fog and she's struggling to focus And you know, you know when you were talking about that attention Restoration therapy, restoration therapy. Art, art, that was how I tried to remember it Actually, kind of stepping back a little bit, recognizing that you're in that, taking yourself, you know, outside for a little bit of a walk. you know, practicing what we just talked about. that noted, what can you notice? the three things that you can notice that is going on around you, and bringing yourself then back to the task that you were trying to work on. You know it's going to have a huge impact for women that you know have really struggled with, with focus and that mental overload, and you know it is something that so many women struggle with at this period in their life When the hormones are just having a whole rollercoaster and impacting, you know, so many aspects of our cognitive function. Jeff, thank you so so much. I have loved our chat and I feel like you and I could literally sit here for hours and go down all sorts of science in nerdy paths with this. Thank you for your time. I'm going to ask you a question that I didn't prep you for, but I have a feeling you're going to give me a really cool answer. I asked a lot of my guests at the end of our conversation what is one thing that you have been reading, watching or listening to recently that is bringing you joy. Oh, this is good.

I want to think about this for just a minute. It has been bringing me joy, you know. I'll just go with the one of the most recent. I'm a fan of Kevin Kelly's work. If you're familiar with him at all, he was the co-sponsor of the film at all. He was the co-founder of Wired. He has a beautiful little book he put out. Do you remember the? I forget if it was Dosseki's, the world's most interesting man. If he commercialized like beer commercials, maybe they didn't play in Australia.

Maybe they didn't make it to Australia, yeah.

Anyway, some people say he's the real life version of that because he's just done so many interesting weird things. He co-founded Wired magazine, which is super techie stuff, but he also just launched this huge volume coffee table book called Vanishing Asia. It's photos he took around Asia for 50 years because he traveled around all these unseen parts of Asia Oh, wow, and many other weird things that you put them all together and you go who is this dude? But he when he was I forget the exact ages, but when he was around late, the mid, late 60s. He he's always had a popular blog. He put out a blog and it was like for my birthday 66 bits of unsolicited advice And they're just a bunch of little one liners that are just gold gems for life And a lot of them since we have similar age boys and probably a lot of your listeners have kids too that are trying to figure out life and themselves. There's a bunch of just great little nuggets of wisdom for people at various stages of life And they're easy. It's like when he has a new book is where I was going with this called I think it's called excellent advice stuff I wish I'd known earlier And it's just a little like one you can keep around the house and you can read a few at a time where you could just power through the whole thing in an hour, and there's some good stuff on there. But that that's getting good stuff out of that lately.

I love that. I'm going to link through to that in the show notes So that if anyone else is looking for some excellent advice they can. they can go seek that out. Jeff, thank you so much for your time today. It has been such an absolute pleasure.

Oh, likewise Thank you, sonya. I loved it, appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts And I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of dare menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you, because you are my biggest driver for doing this work If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to stellarwomencomau slash podcast for the show notes and, while you're there, take my midlife quiz to see why it feels like midlife is messing with your head.