PMS & The Perimenopause – The Happy Menopause Podcast

Season 5 • Episode 16
Jackie Lynch, Nutritionist & Author

You know when it’s coming don’t you? That time of the month, when people start to tiptoe around you and discretion is definitely the better part of valour amongst your loved ones. Woe betide the fool that dares to suggest you’re a little hormonal – especially if it’s a man! Yep, I’m talking about PMS, premenstrual syndrome, which is the focus of this month’s episode.

PMS can make life miserable, and it can affect different women in different ways, because the symptoms can include irritability, low mood, sheer rage, headaches, bloating, back pain, sore breasts, skin breakouts, anxiety, IBS and poor sleep. We women really lucked out, didn’t we?

This episode explores:

• What PMS is and why it happens
• What’s going on with your cycle
• The role of progesterone in PMS
• PMS or PMDD?
• Factors that influence hormone balance
• The role of nutrition in managing PMS
• Specific foods to focus on, and what to avoid

It’s time to stop putting up and shutting up! This is your opportunity to make a material difference to something that might have been affecting you for years.

Show Notes

Find out more about managing PMS through diet in Jackie’s book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish.

Listen to The Happy Menopause podcast on Managing Painful or Heavy Periods.

Biography

Award-winning nutritionist and author, Jackie Lynch is the founder of the WellWellWell nutrition clinic, where she specialises in women’s health and the menopause. Keen to break the taboo about discussing the menopause, she is the host of the popular diet & lifestyle podcast The Happy Menopause, which was shortlisted for the 2021 and 2022 International Women’s Podcast Awards.

Her latest book, The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish (Watkins, 2020) is a symptoms-by-symptom guide to managing menopause symptoms through diet and lifestyle. It was Highly Commended in the 2021 Health & Wellbeing Awards for the Wellbeing Book category.

Jackie is also the author of Va Va Voom; The 10-Day Energy Diet (Headline, 2017) and The Right Bite: Smart Food Choices for Eating on the Go (Nourish, 2016).  Jackie’s advice features in a range of national media and she has appeared as a guest expert on radio and TV, including Channel 4’s Superfoods.

Jackie’s nutrition clinic was recognised as Menopause Nutrition Clinic of the Year in the 2021 and 2022 London & South-East Prestige Awards. She is also a Guardian Masterclass tutor.

From 2011-2022, Jackie was the Chair of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, the renowned training provider for accredited nutritional therapy in the UK. She is a Fellow of the British Association for Nutrition & Lifestyle Medicine and an Affiliate Member of the British Menopause Society.