SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey guys, are you ready to transform your mind so you can transform your life? Coach Mirna brings you one-on-one coaching and expert guest weekly to get you to grow. Because happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Looking for personal growth?

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SPEAKER_02 1:52

Yeah, as you get older, you you don't produce the eggs all the time. So then that's when why your periods start getting irregular before menopause because it's the ovulation that makes the period occur. So yes, and that is the number of eggs, but of course the quality also decreases. But we don't have a measure of quality in a live human woman. But let me take the example of IVF. In IVF, they extract the woman's eggs and they extract the sperm and then combine them to fertilize and put it back in the woman. Well, now they're using artificial intelligence to photograph the eggs. And AI, by looking at the shape of the cell wall, the consistency of the cytoplasm, the nucleoli, they can predict, AI can predict how likely this egg is to be fertilized.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Welcome back to the Transform Your Mind to Transform Your Life radio podcast and television show. I'm your host, Life Coach Myrna Young, and sitting in the guest chair today is Dr. Marina Suri. And we are going to be talking on the topic restoring fertility, trusting the body, and healing reproductive health naturally. Welcome, Dr. Marina. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. All right. So let's give an introduction. My guest today has devoted over three decades to helping women understand, protect, and restore their reproductive health. Dr. Marina Suri is a OBGYN educator and author of Optimize Your Fertility Naturally, known for bridging modern reproductive medicine with holistic lifestyle-based approaches. She's thought the future physicians at the University of Ottawa walked alongside countless couples through infertility and speaks boldly about declining fertility rates and what women can do right now to protect their future health. This conversation is about knowledge, empowerment, hope, and learning to partner with your body instead of fighting it. Yeah, fighting never works, right? On any level, right? You've got to learn to align and partner. So I love it. All right. So as we dive in, Dr. Marina, um, after more than 30 years in OBGYN practice, what patterns did you begin to notice in women's reproductive health? And how did those observations shape your holistic approach?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

So my observations are similar to what any physician who's been in practice for a long time is seeing. People are getting sicker and sicker. There's more diabetes, there's more obesity, there's more autoimmune disease. And in my profession, that affects fertility. And in particular, I'm seeing more women with endometriosis, which is a painful condition that can affect your fertility. Uh, they're also having more polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a condition that affects the regularity of your cycles and also your fertility. So that is happening at greater rates than before, and and couples are having a lot of trouble getting pregnant. The other problem or issue is that women are delaying uh having children because they want to establish their careers and they want to establish themselves financially. Having children is a very expensive uh proposition. So we can understand where all of that is coming from, and but it's very, very sad to see people struggling to such an extent.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Yeah, I mean, I've had a couple of conversations about fertility on the show. I've watched um a documentary on um Netflix about infertility. I have had personal experience with um friends in my life that have problems with infertility. And it looks like, you know, when I was growing up, um, you know, and um I'm in my 60s, so you know, let's age myself. When I was growing up, you would hear women, you know, oh I had sex one time and I'm pregnant. You know, it happens. I think it happens to my mom. You know what I mean? So yeah, we were extremely fertile, right? And now the opposite had happened. Now a lot of people blamed the pill, a lot of people blamed, you know. So now you've just introduced, well, yeah, endometriosis, but I mean, are you seeing that that is really because how many people have endropine endometriosis? Um uh I don't think a lot of people have it. I mean, what what what is the percentage of women that have infertility problems due to endroom? Why do I can't say that word? Endometriosis and that other other thing that you just mentioned, the poly something. Polysistic ovarian syndrome. Right, right. What is the percentage?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

I the quoted figures are are not don't seem large, you know. They say 10 to 15 percent, but the problem with both of those conditions is that they're very underdiagnosed. Um, and as it's uh studies show that it takes seven years for the average patient to be diagnosed with endometriosis, which means they have lack of treatment for that period of time. They don't realize that they they may end up having fertility problems. And it also means that probably the numbers are much bigger than we think. And uh, you know, when I look at my practice, I feel like almost 100% of women have it because I see so much of this. You know, obviously I'm seeing people with problems and issues, so uh it's not an exact figure, but but it these things are getting more and more common than they used to be. And definitely they're associated with lifestyle. I, you know, we know that polycystic ovarian syndrome is associated with insulin resistance and obesity, and we're seeing a lot more of that. And that's due to a number of things like the food we eat, the fact that we're sedentary, uh, but also chemicals that we're exposed to in the environment are larger and larger factors. And that's something that's not talked about in conventional medicine because doctors, conventional doctors have no idea how to deal with it. So that's really something that comes from the functional medicine world and naturopathic world, which I got very interested in over 20 years ago because of my own health. And that's really changed my perspective about looking at disease in general, how to approach disease, because they have a roots-cause approach. They try to figure out, you know, why is this happening? Not just make a diagnosis and give it a pill or do surgery, which is what conventional medicine does. So I think we need to look more deeply at things. And it's really no surprise, you know, we know our lifestyles are bad, but we need to think more about how we improve it because it's doable.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yeah, I mean, this insulin resistant thing is coming up in more places than I expected. Um I had a conversation recently with somebody, I don't remember what it is, but I was quite surprised. Now you're you're putting it in the bucket of infertility. And um yeah, I mean, there's so many, well, again, um insulin resistance happens more often when you when you get into your your third third um you know quarter, which is you know in the 60s or something. Um and we're talking about women here that are you know in their 30s, 20s. I don't know if it goes back to 20s, but definitely that 30. Um teenagers with uh insulation resistance and type 2 diabetes. It's it's shocking. You're kidding. Wow. Okay, all right. So everything is is getting younger and younger and younger. Now, one of the things that I've well before I go on to that, now you didn't add the pill in there at all. Are you don't think the pill is a culprit?

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Uh actually, no, I don't think it's a huge cult culprit of infertility problems itself. And in fact, it may actually be helping some women with endometriosis by keeping it um from flaring up, though I prefer I prefer medications without estrogen because estrogen actually makes it flare and progestin uh you know calms it down, and most pills have both. So, you know, but they work because the progestin is stronger usually. But I, you know, my approach would be not to give estrogen at all in that situation. And I don't like giving the pill as a as a treatment because it's not a treatment, it it can cover up what's going on underneath and cover up the problem. And then a woman doesn't even realize she has a problem. If she's put on the pill at age 18 for painful periods, yeah, and stays on it for 20 years and then goes off, the problem hasn't gone away. It's still gonna be there, and then she'll have to face that at the age of 38 when her fertility is is lower because her egg count is lower. You know, women are born with the amount of eggs that they're gonna have for life, they're never gonna get any more, they're only gonna get less. So that's where age is an important factor.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Yeah, yeah. And um, and that's what I was going to get to before actually but the pill thing. Well, yeah, because I always think that it was the pill, because you're right. Women are going on it earlier. Um, uh, you know, a lot of women are sexually active, not even for painful period. You know, my daughter was put on the the pill for painful period um and developed a blood clot. She can't take it because of that progesterone. So it's even, you know, she had to use different forms of birth control, like the IUDs, because she couldn't, she can't take the pill because of the progesterone. It gives her a blood clot. Now that's a very small amount of people that that happens to. But um uh yeah, but again, some girls are, you know, I had some adopted um girls that um uh they went to planned parenthood without the parent, and and they put them on the pill because they were sexually active, right? So they put them on the pill, you and you need to, because you don't want them being pregnant. So I always thought that the pill was the reason, but wow, you know, again, misinformation, more information. But I was reading a book, um, and it was really Reba Wilson wrote a book, and I'm not sure what draw me to the book, but you know, um, I read a lot and there was an autobiography, and she was talking about when she wanted to have a baby, and she went into she went to this doctor, a fertility doctor like yourself, and uh she was overweight because she was she is uh the the one of the girls that myth got famous because she's she's like 250 pounds, I guess. So she said the doctor said to her, Well, you would have a better chance um if you weren't overweight and or you were healthier or something like that. He didn't even work overweight, he said if you were healthier, and also said something about her probably needing to buy eggs because her eggs are geriatric. And she said, What? I'm 35. Can I have geriatric eggs? And um recently I was talking to my doctor about it, you know, because his he got married and his wife is 37 and and got pregnant within three months. And I'm saying, how did that happen? He says, Yes, he said exactly what you just said that women are born with a finite amount of eggs, and you know what I mean? And it is geriatric at 35, but I don't know, she was just lucky, I guess. Or maybe because he's a doctor, he helped her out somehow. But um, yeah, you know, he was only married a year and um uh he was gonna have a baby in a couple of weeks after I talked to him. So she must have gotten pregnant three months in and a year in, uh, they have a baby. So, but yeah, so um uh that that's amazing to me because I always thought that you can get pregnant until your period stopped. So you can.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Let's talk about that. Right, go ahead. So you you certainly can as long as you're having periods, you are ovulating and you can get pregnant, but you're not ovulating as consistently, and the quality of the eggs is worse. So your chance of getting pregnant just decreases significantly. In 35 years, the oldest patient that I had who had a spontaneous, healthy pregnancy was 48. And she was very well counseled about this because you know, I talked to her about the potential problems and and so forth, and she had a really healthy pregnancy that was planned. But I want you to think about this. Um, you know people who age very differently. I'm sure you know a 60-year-old, one who looks 40, and another one who looks 80, right? People age very, very differently. It's the same with your eggs. The quality of your eggs changes with time. And if you are healthy and looking after yourself, the quality of your eggs will improve and they will be more fertile for longer. So that's what I'm trying to tell women who are delaying. I totally understand delaying pregnancy. I did it myself, but the next generation is doing it even longer than you know, this generation did it. If you want to delay, that's great. But what you need to do is improve your health and improve the quality of your eggs by lifestyle. And then you will be able to have children later in life and be healthier.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Well, that's that's good news because you know, I thought they were lumping it all in this bucket at 35. You've got geriatric eggs, and you need to buy eggs if you want to be pregnant. So you started coming in with some new information, which is good. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

That's the mantra of the IVF clinics. They treat everybody like they're the same, and we're not, we're biologically different, and you have to take that into account. It's like you know, people respond to medications very differently. It's because they metabolize them differently, and yet conventional medicine gives everybody the same dose. We are now in the area of personalization. We can do genetics, we can figure out how you respond to medication and tailor the dose. That's not being taught in medical schools because the pharmaceutical industry does not want to go there. It is they want to have the same dose for everybody and not have to, you know, get into this personalization business. Mind you, they are doing it on in oncology because it is working and they're making very expensive drugs in oncology that are tailored to your genetics. So, you know, it is a venture, right? For cancer, for cancer. But they're only doing it. Well, I I maybe I shouldn't tell tell you why they're doing it, but my feeling is because there's money to be made there. That's what drives the system. Yeah, and you know, if there's not money to be made, like for instance, in improving pregnancy outcomes but with your genetics, nobody's gonna talk about it. The thing is, it's there, things are changing. There's more information, people need to know.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Yeah, there's a lot of big stuff coming down the pipe with as far as longevity. Um, and I and I love it. I mean, I've had a lot of guests on the show talk about all these new things that have been discovered and and um uh you know things that they can do for you know longevity. One, you know, one of my guests talked about natural killer cells for for cancer, how they can do that. And um yeah, um cancer is very expensive. I remember when my daughter, but my sister was diagnosed with cancer, they give her a bill of $200,000 for treatment, and then her insurance wouldn't pay for it. Yeah, her insurance wouldn't pay for it. So um yeah, so cancer is very expensive. So if they're making specialized drugs, it's probably $400,000. So that's where the money is. Yep. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

So I'm I'm lucky I'm in Canada, and you know, it pretty much everything gets covered eventually. The the the more expensive drunks it takes longer, and sometimes uh, you know, they aren't covered initially, but they eventually do get covered, especially when they start making generics and cheaper ones. Uh, so we don't really see that kind of situation, but still, you know, medicine is a very expensive deal, and and our our system is falling apart because it can't pay for it all.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're Canadians, and um my my sister actually had to go to Canada to get treatment because I just said that she's alive today because um she's a Canadian and they looked after her very well there. So we're yeah, we're we're dual citizens and um yeah, so um all right, amazing. I'm speaking to a lot of Canadians recently.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Yay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

My my last guest was in Mississauga, which is where I'm from, thinking, wow, you're narrowing it down. Yes, absolutely. Where in Canada are you? I'm in Ottawa. You're in Ottawa, okay, nice. Okay, all right. So what do you think is the are the biggest um uh global declines, um, the reason for the global declines in infertility? I mean, is it anything outside of what we just talked about? We talked about the fact that your insulin resistance and and uh you know problems with your uterus, whether it's um endometriosis or that other one. Um uh what else is there?

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Well, I think that I did allude to the fact that chemicals are a problem. And I actually think this is the elephant in the room because it's affecting all of us. For instance, yeah, do you know that men's sperm counts have gone down by more than 50% in two generations? And they continue to decrease um, I think by 1.4% every year. So they're saying, you know, by 2045, 2050, men's sperm counts are gonna be nil or almost nil. Um and when we when you look back at the WHO, the World Health Organization has um published from 1980 on uh sperm, what sort of normal sperm counts for men are. And when you look at what's happened in 1980, 80% of the sperm that you would look at under a microscope were normal appearing. Now the average is 4%. So they they have become more and more abnormal looking. Um, Dr. Ashana Swan wrote a really great book about this in 2017 called Countdown, and she's the one who sort of first alerted the world to this problem, and she believes it has a lot to do with the endocrine disrupting chemicals in our environment.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

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SPEAKER_02 23:10

Uh sperm are actually very sensitive little beings and they don't respond well to chemicals like phthalates, which are found in plastics and in fragrances. Um so that's part of it. I mean, I'm sure all of lifestyle has to do with part of it because we know that sperm counts go down when you're sedentary, they go down when you're eating junk food, they go down even when you're watching TV too much. So they are sensitive. And even though that you you think there's an unlimited quantity because men keep producing, right? But if they're producing at less normal sperms at lower rates, it's uh it's gonna affect fertility big time.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

So um uh so the chemicals affect the sperm. Does it affect the eggs? Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so the quality of the eggs go down. What's the what's the what's the exact um scenario from for the women from what you just said? If you're looking at the eggs, are the eggs decreasing in norm in their normal ways? Does it make them less penetratable? Does it make them come because um again we talked about ovulation? I guess we don't always produce one egg, uh one egg a cycle. Is that what happens too?

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah, as you get older, you you don't produce the eggs all the time. So then that's when why your periods start getting irregular before menopause, because it's the ovulation that makes the period occur. So, yes, and that is the number of eggs, but of course the quality also decreases. But we don't have a measure of quality in a live human woman. But let me take the example of IVF. In IVF, they extract the woman's eggs and they extract the sperm and then combine them to fertilize and put it back in the woman. Well, now they're using artificial intelligence to photograph the eggs, and AI, by looking at the shape of the cell wall, the consistency of the cytoplasm, the nucleoli, they can predict, AI can predict how likely this egg is to be fertilized.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

So that that's gonna save women hundreds of thousands of dollars because that that that stuff doesn't even work.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

So that's a measure of egg quality, and it's being used now in picking which eggs should be used in IVF. Imagine if we could do that in a woman and look into her ovaries and say, Oh, here I see you have some good eggs, some bad eggs. Let's use this one. Well, that's not doable at this point, but who knows? You know, but there might be a way of scanning your ovaries one day and saying, Okay, this is this is good. I have some good eggs.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Wow, wow, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, because you know, I have a of this crazy story of I'm not even sure what what's going on now, but there's this girl that wanted to be pregnant for a while. She's been married for a long time, and and she decided that she was gonna borrow money and get IVF. And then they did the IVF, they actually implanted two of them, and then the babies died, and you know, now she's got to pay back that loan. And I don't know if they were ever gonna try to go again. I have to find out. But yeah, the documentary that I mentioned that I watched on on Netflix has you know uh informed the world that that IVS stuff doesn't work now, it's just it's a very low risk.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

The thing is, I I don't think you know, women who are so desperate to get pregnant, it's not always explained to them. They they think that IVF is successful all the time. No, the truth is that each cycle is about 30% chance. You know, it depends on your age and other factors. So on average, women need 2.5 cycles to have a healthy pregnancy. So, you know, now our government, for instance, is starting to support women because they realize there's a crisis going on with you know, we we're not gonna have a workforce in 30 years to support our country. So now they're saying, okay, we're gonna pay for I uh one round of IVF. But if you don't get pregnant in that round, and chances are 70% that you won't get pregnant, that hasn't really helped. So, what I'm saying, why don't you teach people that their general health, what they eat, what how they move, how they deal with stress, is so important that they should be focusing on that and not try to do some technological answer that really doesn't work all that well and costs thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Yes, sometimes hundreds of thousands. Yes. I mean, like I said, um uh the the people in the study, um, the Netflix study, I mean, uh, a lot of them uh, you know, went through a lot of IVF and didn't work, and then they moved on to other things, fetal implants and surrogacy and adoption. But yeah, that was they're they're trying to say that yeah, you sometimes you want to carry the child, so you're doing the IVF because that's your what you wanted to do, but then you know, whatever. And you're right, it's it's the eggs and the sperm that is and that is the problem. The the the sperm is probably not as good, and the eggs are not as good, and I don't know what else they do in those petri dishes that are are making it, but but the the the sad part was the fact that yeah, um, even when you you get a successful what you know implantation, then sometimes the babies die. So there's obviously something else going on there. Um, but yeah, so but yeah, I mean we we we want to give hope, which is what this conversation is about. We want to give hope because it is one of the top things for women, and especially there's something goes on in your psyche that you know you might say, I never want to get pregnant. It's not for me, right? But the minute you say, I want to have a baby, and you can't, it becomes your 100% focus.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Absolutely, absolutely, and it's a very stressful experience. Uh and a defective couples, it's a very, very hard, hard experience. But women don't feel that they have any power at all. And what I'm trying to say is you have so much, so many ways that you can improve your health, you know, if you look at what you're doing in your lifestyle, just analyze it. And there's a lot of evidence that this works not only just for health and longevity, but fertility as well. I'm also very, very interested in longevity. I attend lots of longevity conferences and have for 25 years. My I'm I'm what I call a longevity seeker. I'm I hope to make it to a healthy work 20. So um, you know, so you do the same stuff basically for longevity and fertility.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

But but we talk about longevity, well, yeah, right. I mean, I was just about to say that, you know, we don't talk about longevity until we're over the childbearing age, but maybe you they should start, which is, you know, my daughter is 36 and I keep telling her that you you gotta start now. Um, because I don't know if you read Dr. Peter Tia's book. He's saying that it starts 20 years from now. It's not, you don't wait until you're 60 and talk about, oh, I want to leave to 80. You start in your 30, so that when you're 50, right, then you're not starting to have these um chronic conditions that come with age. So, all right, so this is a good segue into your work because you talk about optimizing your fertility naturally and you have integrated cutting-edge research with natural strategies. So, what are um the top evidence-based lifestyle changes that most people do to improve fertility outcomes? And when should they start? I mean, I mean, if you were at 35 and want to get pregnant, is it too late to start these lifestyle changes? Because you only got like five years until you're 40.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

I think you can make significant change even in three months. But I would say if you're planning a pregnancy, I would say a few years would be even better. Because especially if you have a problem like polycystic ovarian syndrome, because uh fixing the irregular periods, there's a lot of supplementation that needs to take place, dietary change, increase in in movement, and those things take time. You know, any habit is is you have to develop the habit and it takes time. So I think, first of all, that young women in high school should be better informed. Instead of worrying about teen pregnancy, they should be informed about the whole fertility issue, about the fact that what they're going through now may affect their fertility later. They should be aware of that, and they're not, they're not being told those things. Uh, I'm not saying it's not important to prevent teen pregnancy. I think it's very important, but that shouldn't be the total focus of our education for young women. Young women need to know how their bodies work, how to learn the rhythm of your body, how to interpret what's going on, and also to realize that we uh cycles are normal and we're going to have changes due to the cycle that are gonna be there, and some of them are not always fun, but the better you know how to expect it and deal with it, the better prepared you are.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Yeah, so what are some of the natural things that um that you teach people, especially in your book, that they can do?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

So I I go through all the things that we do in life. Okay, the the most basic diet. We all know a good diet is important, but do people realize that they did a study of uh women who eat fast food? Women who eat more uh than fast food more than four times in a week have significantly lower fertility rates. We we sort of take fast food for granted. Oh, it's not the healthiest, but you know, it's not really gonna affect us, right? It has a huge effect.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Um well, it has a huge effect because they all get fat because the fast food is what's fueling the the obesity. So yes, it's bad for you.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, yeah. So it's not it's the sugar, it's the chemicals. There's so many chemicals in in processed foods. So really we have to try to get back and eat more whole food, more natural food, more vegetables. A lot of our meat is is unhealthy, it's tainted with chemicals and and antibiotics and hormones. That goes into our bodies, it's gonna affect us, you know. We have to be more discerning about what we put in our mouth. Um, also, the standard American diet is is just very, very imbalanced in terms of there's too many carbs, too little protein. People need to know more about what it takes to run a healthy body. We we should all come with a uh an owner's manual. It should come out of the uterus with us, you know, like learn how to.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Well, let me tell you something. There, even if you had an ominous manner and they're they're not gonna read it.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

That's that is the problem. Not enough. Well, there seems to be two camps, right? People who are super interested in their health, and you know, these are the the the people who are the bias like you. Yes, yes, and then the other people who think that it's not important at all. And it's it's an interesting because there's so many doctors in that category because they weren't taught that it's important. Uh, and and you know, it's you only have to think about it for two seconds to realize that what you put in your body is important.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Yeah, but a lot of people suffer from laziness. That's basically what I think the the problem is, is that they don't they don't they don't want to put in the effort to do anything, you know. Women or men or whoever don't want to cook, so they go to the fast food. They, you know, I live, you live in Ottawa, it's cold there. That's why I left Canada. I'm in Florida. It is, it is, you know, we had a cold spell for the last little while, but traditionally, you know, it's 80 degree wetter here and people don't walk. They don't walk, they don't, you know, you know something it's laziness, it's like they don't care.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

That's true. And so speaking of that, exercise, um, exercise definitely improves your fertility for men and women. There's no question. And particularly women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it's been shown that they need more vigorous activity in order to balance their reproductive cycle. So people have to make this part of their lives. You know, it used to be that people did a lot of manual labor and they they were healthier. They were healthier because of that. But now a lot of white-collar jobs, sedentary jobs, we sit in front of screens.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Yeah, you sit in front of screens, you do your work from home on the Zoom, and yeah, you don't go outside, you don't go to the gym, right? And you then you you eat junk, right? So yes, it's yes, you're right. There is, I would love to know the statistic of the the people that are doing it, that are running in the winter and going to the gym and you know, every day. And there's some people like, yeah, like Dr. Tia and you know, Tony Robbins, and you know, some of the most of the most of the people that that's in your ear, they are going after that because they need the energy, they need the the you know, they've got a goal, and they're trying to teach others that this is if this is what you want to get to, this is what you've got to do, which is why the coaching industry is just blossomed, right? But then you coach people and they're motivated for a little bit and then they they drop off because they're not naturally motivated, but yeah, I um I walk, you know, I walk a 5k. It doesn't take a lot out of me, I just love it, and I walk. But you're so lucky to be in Florida, I know, right? Yes, I'm lucky to be in Florida, so I walk and um you know, I and then I read Dr. Tia's book, and he says you need strength training, you need to go to the gym and you need to have a VO2 max and all this stuff. And I'm thinking, oh yeah, I know I should. You know, so now I go to the gym once a week because you know I'm getting in a little strength training, but I know that walking is my longevity thing because there's so many benefits of it. And I'm in the sunshine and breathing the air, and at least that's what I do. It's not the best, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

I I think walking is an excellent exercise. And I I'm not saying everybody has to exercise themselves to death. In fact, over exercise is not good for you, it can stress you and is bad for fertility. Um, I'm just advocating for regular movement that gets you out of your seat. So whether it's walking, whether it's fast walking, whether it's you know, a treadmill, uh, you know, this varies, you can find something that appeals to you because there's many, many different sports and things that you can do. And even in the winter, I uh I used to ski and skate, you know, when my kids were small, and I must say, yeah, once they grew up, it's like, oh, I don't want to go out there, it's too cold. But there's other things I can do, and I have a gym in my home, and that's a really important part of my life.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Yes, though, good for you. Yeah, and you know, my mom still lives in, you know, my mom is 88 and she, you know, walks every day, and that's why she's 88 and healthy. But in the wintertime, uh, not recently, because she's a little older now, um, but you know, maybe a couple of years ago, maybe even five years ago in the winter, she would just go walk the mall because it's indoor and the malls are like you you walk forever in those things. That's right. Yeah, there's a lot of mall walkers, elderly mall walkers who do have the linger here. And I think you're right, some of them even have groups, which is good. You go and you meet up and you and you walk, but yeah, so there's ways around it. I mean, you know, this elderly is not gonna go to the gym, even though in Florida our gyms are filled with uh the I'm assuming the snowbirds and people that live here, but um uh yeah, so because they've gotten the message that yes, if you want to live health span, which is the new buzzword, instead of lifespan, exercise is very, very important part of it. And of course, eating, right? And sleeping, not just forget that. But you know, they're the trifecta, you've got to, you have to have them all.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Okay, yeah, sleep sleep is super important, not only amount of sleep, but quality of sleep, timing of sleep. A lot of people have undiagnosed sleep apnea and don't realize it, and they're not getting good sleep. Uh, we we need to focus on this much more and educate people much more. I think uh especially young people who are trying to build a career will often burn the candle at both ends. And you know, they're trying to get ahead in their career, which is good, but but they're completely their life is out of balance. And and and you know, that actually adds stress to the whole situation, whatever the way that you stress to your bodies, right? Stress to your body, stress to your brain, and the way you respond to stress is a really important factor. It's been shown that that women under more stress, men under more stress, have lower fertility rates. There's no question.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good. I'm glad we're um we're not just blatantly blaming the pill. I love it. Because if you think it's the pill, then you're not gonna do all these other things. So that's amazing. Yeah. Now, I spend a lot of time talking about trauma on this show. So let's uh um let's see if there's a link between you know trauma and infertility. So um, you know, for the women with with that had trauma, you know, um childhood trauma, let's be specific, or maybe even young adulthood trauma, um uh how does their reproductive cycles um, you know, I don't want to say benefit, but the other word. Um uh how does how does it affect the reproductive cycles? That's that's a better question, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:18

So when you suffer from trauma, uh from remembering traumatic episodes that come back to you, that affects your cortisol and your norepinephrine. And those hormones can affect everything in the body. The uh those are hormones that are meant to be short-term to deal with a specific situation, you know, like in the caveman days, the saber-toothed tiger, you know, you want your cortisol up, your norepinephrine up, so you can run away or fight with the tiger or something. But what what trauma does is is expose you to that chronically as your mind goes back to your traumatic situation, you keep pumping out those hormones. And what those hormones do is prior prioritize your survival, and reproduction is not necessary for your survival. So people, women who are stressed a lot will lose their cycles quite often, like stop having periods because the body's saying, No, you need to survive this. You having a baby is not a good thing at this point. And I think people need to use that perspective more in seeing what their situation is, because uh it this can be a huge factor in in terms of your fertility. So I think if you're having trouble getting pregnant, you maybe should think more that your body may be protecting you uh from outside influences and telling you it's not the time to get pregnant until you change something in your life, whether it's dealing with the trauma or whether it's uh you know improving your food and your activity and your sleep.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

That's true. That's true. That's That's the best takeaway. That's the best takeaway. Right. Um, right. And and don't necessarily blame it on your husband's sperm camp.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

That may be another thing, because he might have trauma too.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

That's right. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

All right. So let's talk about your book now. Your book is called Optimize Your Fertility Naturally. What's the main message of your book? And um then you can tell our listeners um how they can pick up a copy and also um connect with you after the show.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Yeah, so the main message is that you have the power to improve your health and improve your fertility through that. And these are the ways that you can do it. I wanted to show evidence-based lifestyle changes, you know, studies that have shown that you do this, this in particular, you can improve your life. Uh, it's really meant to empower people as much as possible because um most people who are having trouble getting pregnant feel powerless. And you you shouldn't. You really shouldn't. There's a lot of things that you can do. It takes some work, it takes some effort, there's no question. Um, but I have seen, you know, uh when I've explained this to people, and women who really want a pregnancy are very, very motivated, or some of them, some of them, they will just do everything. I have seen women just change their lives completely and influence their partners to change their lives and then you know get pregnant super quickly, and and it's just wonderful to see.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

It's it's uh it's really a well like like I like I said earlier, if you want to have a baby, it is a very powerful motivator. It's a very that's why they're willing to borrow money, they're willing to spend hundreds and thousands, they're willing to go through. I mean, one of the books that I read was from Gabrielle Union. Um, you know, you're Canadian, I'm not sure if you know her, but she's a a black actress here and she got married to Dwayne Wade. And she tells me she she in her book, she talks about she went through nine fruit IVF treatments, nine of them, right? But then she had trauma. She was raped when she was um, she was raped when she was 19 or something. So that's probably what affected her body, but it didn't work out after nine. They have to get a circuit. So um uh yeah, so um, you know, people you're very motivated. That's what I'm trying to say. You're very motivated, and it's it's very painful to know that you want to be mother and you can't, you know. I have a very close friend that she got married, um, I think she was in 440 or something like that, and um which was a bit too late, and she went through one IVF treatment, it didn't work. And every time I see her, she cries because she's now 67 or something. Every time I see her, she cries because she doesn't have a child, you know, and it's something she wanted weren't anything else in the world, and it never happened for her. So it's it's yes, it's it's it's it's it's a sore tongue, and it's very it's very painful, and I'm very happy for the women that succeed at it, you know, because you know, what do you if you can't carry one naturally, like I said, sometimes you you get surrogacy, you adopt, and you but a woman that wants to be a mother, it's a very, very powerful motivator, yes. Yes, I personally think as a mother and you or mother too, that it's one of the most exhilarating experiences in the world.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

I mean, being a mom is I I totally agree with that. I mean, uh absolutely, but then I have a sister who never wanted children, and there's there's some of those, yes, and and I respect that completely. I mean, I that that's a choice that you make, and you know, the the way you want to live your life, you shouldn't in a lot of cultures, you know, you are almost forced to have a pregnancy. That's not good either. No, you need somebody who really, really wants to do it, yeah. Um, and uh, but hopefully can. And I really think that your attitude is also very, very important. You know, if you tell yourself, oh, I can't, I can't, it's not working, that's not good either. You you have to have a positive attitude saying, I can overcome this, I will learn how to do this, I will learn what my body needs and give it.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

Yes, yes, I agree, right? Positive and intention and setting the intention and and not expecting failure. It's very true. And anything, you know, yeah, anything you want in life, you've gotta, you know, because if you say no, then the universe is gonna hear you and and then it's not gonna happen. So I agree perfectly. So your book is available on Amazon.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Um not quite yet. Okay. It it is just about done, but it's I'm not gonna have a book launch till June. It's gonna be in Dallas at a conference. Um, I'm going to start uh pre-orders uh within the next month or two, but the information is all on my website, which is Dr. Marina OBGYN. It's drmarinaobgyn.com. And there's a wait list that you can put your name on. And there's also I have a blog, I write uh a weekly blog on fertility issues. So you can sign up for that, and then everybody who was getting my blog, of course, will get all in the information about how to get my book once it's out.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Beautiful, beautiful. All right, so I'm glad I asked that question. Um Ray, so but yeah, listen, I mean, uh the information that we we've talked about here today, it was it was very all-encompassing, and uh it's good, it should give anybody that's listening that is in that fertility journey or plan to be um some hope that you know it can happen and it doesn't have to be because a lot of women, not a lot, but I don't know, enough, um, would say, I can't afford those fertility treatments. So they feel that there's no help for them. But you're saying that they can change some things naturally, what they eat, you know, uh exercise, how they sleep, and improve the quality of their the quality of their eggs. And and then their husbands can do something to improve the quality of his sperm. Um uh so yes, naturally is good. So, yes, this book would be very important because of course, you know, you you be going into detail of of what they can do. And and um uh and then yeah, your blog is good because if there's something that you want, you have to get as much knowledge as possible. So you arm yourself with knowledge. Knowledge is power again. The side of that is only power if you use it, but you need to have the knowledge, you need to have the power, and you know, and I become very knowledgeable because I sit on the show and talk to experts like you.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Yeah, I I mean, I uh I must say I I love the idea of doing a podcast. I I would love to do it myself eventually. Maybe I'll go and I'll ask for your advice when I get there.

SPEAKER_03 51:23

Yes, of course, of course. Yeah, you have a lot of people tuning in. Yes, yes. Um, it was very good because it's it's I think it's the number one women's issue right now. Like I said, you know, when I was growing up, girls would just get pregnant. You know, they don't want these kids and they just get pregnant. You just have sex one time, it happens. And now you're married for 10 years and it's not happening. And you're actually trying, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:53

The world is changing, and and it's it's quite scary. Um, you know, what how low the reproductive the fertility rates are in some countries, uh so places like Japan and North Korea, uh there are gonna see the changes. Well, they are seeing the changes that they're having so many more elderly people. Japan just started a program where they're bringing Indian immigrants to help look after their elderly because they don't have enough Japanese people to look after their elderly. So um immigration is gonna be one week way of dealing with this problem. But since the whole world is suffering from low fertility, it's we'll have to bring people from Mars, I think.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

Yeah, yeah, I guess that's probably why the Trump administration tried to ban abortions because you know they went up the fertility rates, yeah, which is another thing, right? There's some women dying to have a baby, and some women are you know trying to have abortion. We're not gonna talk about abortion, but um I just I just thought uh plug that in there. Um amazing. Well, I enjoy this conversation. I'm well past my fertility age, but I find this conversation um uh fantastic and um you know I I it's inspirational to a lot of my listeners um because you know my listeners are in that um uh bucket, you know, 30s to 50s. And um yeah, a lot of a lot of women are are having problems with with fertility. So I love having these conversations. And of course, my daughter is 36.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

So um, you know, so yeah, so I'm be able to the writing of this book actually started because my daughter, when she graduated from medical school, she turned 31 and she asked for her birthday if I would pay for her to freeze her eggs because she knew that she was starting a really busy residency and wouldn't have time or whatever. And then that's what got me thinking, you know, you don't want to uh freeze stressed, tired eggs because they're not gonna be high quality, and that's what what led to doing all the research for this book basically telling her this is what you need to do for my grandchildren.

SPEAKER_03 54:14

I love that urgent story. Yes, I tell you, we we love being mothers and helping out, so amazing! All right, well, listen, um uh Dr. Marina, thank you for reminding us that knowledge is power and that women deserve compassion, whole person care when it comes to their bodies and their futures. So if this episode spoke to you, ask yourself what is one step I can take today to better understand and honor my reproductive health. You'll find Dr. Maria uh Marina, um, her last name is S-T-R-A-S-Z-A-K-Suri. Um, I couldn't say it, so I dropped that. And her book. Um the link will not be the book right now, but when the book is is live, then I would I would go back and add it in. But definitely check out her website, which will be um in the show notes as well as on the the the show page of of Transform Your Mind, which is myhelps.us and remember when you renew your mind, you transform your life in every aspect, whether it's longevity, your fertility, um whatever that you want to transform relationships, everything you it starts with the mind and then you transform your life. So if there's one thing I want to leave in addition to what I just you know, my my summary there is that yes, um don't be defeated. You know, anything you want is worth fighting for. And if you want to be a mother, right, there are ways to do it. And if you uh you you approach it from a holistic point of view, then you know, it might work for you. Right. So um uh so as we close out, do you have any last words for listeners, Dr. Marina? Well, I just wish you all a fertile future. Yes, I like that. Right. All right, well listen, thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you, Dr. Marina, for being on the show. I definitely enjoyed this conversation. Until next time, namaste. Thank you, namaste.