INTRO
Hey, I’m Megan Pfiffner, and welcome to Mornings with Megan. Grab your coffee and let’s have a convo.
When something goes sideways on a Tuesday, do you problem solve it, or does your brain spiral straight to the worst case scenario before your coffee’s even gotten cold? Welcome back. I’m Megan Pfiffner, nutritionist and perimenopause decoder, back with you this week. Today we’re talking about the pillar of the Matrix that gets the least airtime and does the most damage when it’s ignored: Regulate. Because you can have the best gut protocol in the world, the best hormone patch, and the best nutrition plan on the planet, and still feel like garbage if this piece isn’t in place.
HEALTH IS DYNAMIC, NOT A FINISH LINE
Here’s the assumption I want to dismantle first. We treat health like a finish line. Like there’s a version of you waiting at the end of the protocol, and once you get there, you’re done. That’s not how this works. Health is dynamic, because life is dynamic. Accidents happen. People pass. Jobs get lost. Marriages end. Friend group drama erupts out of nowhere. Every one of those is a hit to your nervous system, and your protocol does not get a pause button just because life doesn’t stop moving.
In the Matrix, Fuel, Move, Connect, and Clean all give you something you can point to. You can track a macro, log a workout, go see a friend, swap a product.
REGULATE: THE PILLAR YOU CAN’T SCREENSHOT
Regulate doesn’t work like that. Your nervous system state isn’t showing up on tomorrow’s lab panel, but it is running the whole show underneath everything else. Your body is not overreacting. It’s actually under-resourced.
MEET MONICA
I want to introduce you to someone. I like to call mine Monica. She’s the voice in my head narrating everything I do. When she’s kind, she can be very helpful. When she’s nasty, which is most of the time, questioning every choice, telling me that I’m failing, telling me that I can’t do this, she is very loud. And here’s what you should know about her.
She, your Monica, is not the enemy. Think about your seven-year-old self and everything that your inner Monica did for her. How she kept her safe, how she gave her comfort when she needed it. A lot of what Monica says is rooted in fear, because she’s a part of you trying to protect you. She’s just running on outdated software, and in perimenopause, that software is actively working against you. We’re not trying to delete her here.
Protective parts of you really do matter. We’re just trying to stop letting her drive.
THE SAME EVENT, TWO STORIES
Let me give you an example. You wake up on Monday morning and your internet is out. You have a packed day from nine to five with no wiggle room. Your inner Monica is probably screaming at you with everything that could go wrong, starting with you could miss a meeting and ending with you getting fired, losing your home, and dying alone. Wildly unhelpful, but also that’s kind of what she does.
But your brain has another option. Curiosity instead of catastrophe. That’s a bummer. What are my options? Hmm, I have a phone that could be used as a hotspot. There is that cute coffee shop down the street with wifi. The library has wifi. My neighbor’s house, I fed their dog last month, they have wifi. Same outage, two completely different nervous system responses before nine a.m. Kelly McGonigal calls this a challenge response: harnessing the stress instead of drowning in it.
And here’s something you should really think about. Your body can release similar stress hormones just anticipating a hard conversation with your boss as it would having that hard conversation, at a lower level, but the same set of hormones. All that rumination about the fight that hasn’t happened yet, your nervous system may already be partway there.
THE ZEBRA
Robert Sapolsky explores how animals react to stress in his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.
Let’s pretend that you’re a zebra. You have a beautiful silky mane, some badass stripes, and you’re just hanging out with all your zebra buddies, drinking at the watering hole. Suddenly the wind shifts and you get a whiff of something that alerts you that there is danger. You are running before you’ve even consciously registered why. As you take off, you see there is a large lioness running full speed towards you and your friends. You kick it into high gear. You pound the savannah grass with everything that you have.
Your heart is about to burst out of your chest because it is pumping so hard. Your lungs are on fire and your legs feel like they might give out at any moment. But just as you think that you can’t go anymore, you realize the lioness has peeled off. She wasn’t fast enough to catch you or your friends today. So you slow down, take some gulps of air, and trot back over to the watering hole. And you shake. Full body shake, head to toe, and that dumps the last of those stress chemicals right out of your system. Then you go back to drinking water with your friends. You’re not scanning the horizon, you’re not replaying the chase. Monica doesn’t get to give a single note. It happened. It’s over. It’s not worth another ounce of your energy.
That shake it off moment is the completion of the stress response. Threat, address it, return to baseline. That is the design.
If this is the first time someone has explained the zebra thing to you, send this to a friend who’s been white-knuckling through her own version of the chase. She needs to hear she’s allowed to come back to the watering hole too.
WHY MOST OF US NEVER GET THERE
Most of us are the zebra who never makes it back to the watering hole. We’re stuck mid-chase permanently. And when you’re already running on high cortisol, already spiking your blood sugar all day long, even a small thing lands like a five-alarm fire. That’s not you being dramatic. That’s your nervous system not returning to baseline.
And this is why the best protocol in the whole world cannot out-supplement a body that’s stuck in fight or flight. Notifications. The news. A fight with your partner. Tension at work. Eating foods that your body reacts to. Fasting on top of a system that’s already maxed out. Not sleeping. Not getting touched or hugged or held. None of these are dramatic on their own, but stacked together, they’re a full stress cup with no room left, overflowing. I talked about this exact thing in Episode 22 if you want to go deeper on the cortisol piece.
WHERE TO ACTUALLY START
I’m not going to tell you to just stop thinking those thoughts. That’s just not realistic and it’s not how your brain works. Here’s where I want you to start.
Catch Monica instead of following her all the way down the spiral. You don’t have to shut her up. Just say, come sit beside me, I know you’re trying to protect me, this isn’t helping right now.
Think about one line of gratitude before bed, or one shared gratitude out loud at dinner.
Take two deep breaths before you eat. I talk about why this is important in Episode 13 on digestion. Your body will not properly digest a meal if it thinks that it’s eating while being chased. Not compatible.
Set your alarm five minutes earlier. Not for one more task. For five minutes of actual quiet.
I know this sounds like more to do on a list that’s already too long. But this isn’t another task. It’s an investment, and the return is a nervous system that isn’t firing on everything all day. Less reactivity means more bandwidth, for your health, your relationships, for your life.
CLOSE
Health is dynamic because life is dynamic. There is no arriving somewhere and staying there forever. The goal is building a nervous system that gets back to baseline faster every time life throws something at it. And that starts with how you talk to yourself. The next time Monica gets loud, try offering her the kindness you’d offer your best friend, your sister, your mother. Because most of what she says, you would never say to any of them.
That’s what I’ve got for you this week. I’ll see you next Wednesday.
SHARE THE EPISODE + DISCLAIMER
Can you do me a favor? If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with one woman in your life who needs a different story about perimenopause. Our bodies didn’t come with a user manual, and this perimenopause thing can feel confusing and lonely. But you are not alone. You are not crazy, and you are definitely not broken. And maybe someone in your life needs that reminder today. Let’s spread the word and be kind to each other and ourselves.
Now the legal bit. I’m a nutritionist, but I’m not your nutritionist. This podcast is for information and education only. No client relationship is formed. Always seek medical advice when necessary. I’ll see you next Wednesday morning.
