The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Ultimate Guide to Women’s Hormones: Use Science to Reset Your Body, Balance Mood, & Feel Amazing
Thu, 29 May 2025
Today’s episode is your ultimate guide to fixing your hormones at any age—and it’s a MUST listen for every woman in your life. If you’re tired, bloated, gaining weight in places you never used to, struggling with thinning hair, acne, brain fog, low sex drive, mood swings, PMS, painful periods — this is not how it has to be. Mel sits down with top OB-GYN and hormone expert Dr. Jessica Shepherd, MD to unpack the science of women’s hormones in a way you’ve never heard before. Whether you’re in your 20s and dealing with irregular cycles and PMS, or in your 40s and 50s navigating perimenopause and menopause, Dr. Shepherd breaks down exactly what’s going on in your body—and how to get it back in balance. You’ll learn: -The signs of hormone imbalance and how to fix it -The surprising ways hormone shifts mess up your skin, cause weight gain, disrupt your sleep, and more -The best foods to support your hormones (and the ones to cut back on) -How to stop hair thinning and hormonal acne -Why your skin starts to sag and what you can do to restore collagen -What happens when you stop birth control—and how long it takes your body to reset -Everything you need to know about PCOS, endometriosis, thyroid disease, and more This is your science-backed step by step guide to balancing your hormones for health, happiness, and longevity. Whether you’re 25 or 65, you’ll finally learn how to work with your body, instead of against it, to feel your absolute best. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked this episode, you’ll love listening to this one next: The #1 Menopause Doctor: How to Lose Belly Fat, Sleep Better, & Stop Suffering NowConnect with Mel: Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer
Chapter 1: What are the signs of hormone imbalance?
This conversation is so important, whether you're in high school, you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond, because women's health is hormone health. So if you're tired, bloated, gaining weight in places you never used to, if you're struggling with thinning hair or acne, brain fog, low sex drive, mood swings, PMS, painful periods,
Our expert today is going to tell you this is not how it needs to be. And there is so much you need to understand and that you can do. Today, you're going to learn the signs of hormone imbalance and how to fix it at any age. You'll also learn the surprising ways that hormone imbalance screws up your skin, messes with your weight, disrupts your sleep, and so much more.
You'll hear about the best foods that support hormone health, how to fix thinning hair, and everything you want to know about hormones and skin, including acne and aging, saggy skin. Our guest today is world-renowned OBGYN, Dr. Jessica Shepherd. She's here with the answers you need. And I'm telling you something, this conversation is so incredible.
As soon as I'm done talking to you, I'm sending this to my two daughters, every single one of their friends. I'm sending this to every single person in my life who is struggling to get pregnant, who's ever complained about their period. I'm gonna send this to my mom because she's gonna feel so vindicated and every one of my girlfriends. And I know you're going to too.
But mostly I am just so happy you're listening today because I personally have never understood the female body. or what hormones truly are or what they do or what is actually going on in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. And after listening today, I do and so will you. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited that you're here.
The conversation that you're about to hear is life-changing. And I want to say it's always such an honor to spend time and to be together with you. And if you're a new listener, I also want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. And here's one thing I wanted to say. Because you made the time to listen to this particular episode, here's what I know about you.
You're the kind of person who values information that can help you take control of your health and make you feel your absolute best every single day, no matter how old or young you may be. And if you're listening to this right now because someone in your life shared this episode with you, I just think that's really cool because here's what that means.
It means you have people in your life that care about you. They want you to be healthy and they know that understanding and knowing how to optimize your hormones, that it's critical for your overall health. That's why they sent that to you. And I think that's just really cool. that you have people in your life that care about you. So thank you for listening to this. Thank you for being here.
I'm so excited because our guest today is going to help us do exactly that, understand our bodies, understand our hormones, and help us optimize them for better health. Dr. Jessica Shepherd is a board-certified OBGYN who specializes in women's health, sexual wellness, and menopause. Dr. Shepherd completed her medical residency at Drexel University.
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Chapter 2: How can we support women's hormone health?
Chapter 3: What happens when you stop birth control?
She also completed a fellowship in minimally invasive gynecological surgery at the University of Louisville, where she also earned her MBA. Dr. Shepard also served as the director of minimally invasive gynecological surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago before leaving to practice at Baylor University, where she is still affiliated today.
She sits on the advisory boards for Women's Health Magazine, womenshealth.org, and the Society for Women's Health Research, and is the chief medical officer at the healthcare company, HERS. Dr. Shepard is also the author of the bestselling book, Generation M, Living Well in Perimenopause and Menopause. So please help me welcome Dr. Jessica Shepard to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Dr. Jessica Shepard, I am so excited to meet you. Thank you for hopping on a plane. Thank you for making the time. I cannot wait to have this conversation with you.
I'm just doubly excited to be here. You are someone who I've listened to for a long time, and the ability to be able to share my little slice of life with you and with everyone here, I love it.
Well, it's actually a very big slice of life. And it's an aspect of life that a lot of us don't understand. And so I cannot wait to learn from you. And where I want to start is I'd love to have you speak directly to the person who is with us right now. who has made the time to learn from you.
And can you tell them what might be different about their life or the life of a woman that they love if they really take to heart everything you're about to teach us and share with us today and they apply it to their life? What could change?
I would say, you know, for everyone who's listening and even myself, I think this is where this really resonates is I'm going through that journey as well, but why am I here and where do I want to be? And that really is that opportunity of self-care to say, I get to be in charge of myself. And many times we don't take that time to say, what is really going on?
Because that's when we really start to push away all the narratives and the stories and what society tells us. And that really is this transformation in life is to take some time, take pause and say, why am I here and where do I want to be?
Wow. And what I'm excited about to learn from you, Dr. Shepard, is oftentimes when you realize you don't feel how you want to feel or you're not where you want to be in your life in terms of your relationship to your health or how you feel or your energy or all aspects of your life, right, that you're not quite sure what the problem is.
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Chapter 4: How do hormones impact your skin and hair?
Yeah, it actually started from the OB world, right? Bringing babies into the world. And that was so fascinating to me. And it's very exciting. And as I was going through residency, still love OB is when I really realized that there is this whole scope of a woman's life outside of pregnancy.
But when I really started to see women, whether it was in their adolescence or even later on in life, is that there's still so much to be taken care of that we really have that ability to interact and build relationship with women. And that's where I really thrived. And so that after residency, I actually did a surgical fellowship because I loved being in the OR. I love being able to
really take something very complex and transform in a way that's helpful for them in the operating room, and then coming back to who are you and how can I help you there?
And how did being a surgeon... impact you and lead you to where you are now and the philosophy that you have about medicine and women's health.
And most of the surgeries that I was doing, a lot of times it had to do with women in their midlife. And so when they would come into me with their diagnosis, whether that was fibroids, endometriosis, I got to sit with them and talk to them about this diagnosis. But what actually came out in the visit was all the other things that were going on in their life.
And so that's where I started to see our physical health has so much more to do with the mind-body connection. So they would come in and have a certain disease or something that was going on. And I was like, I know I can help you there because that's a surgical thing that I know I'm very skilled to do.
But what I'm really paying attention to are the other things that you're telling me that's going on with your life and your career, taking care of your kids, your relationship. And that really has so much more to do with how we show up and what we're able to capacitate, what we're able to take in.
And that's when I was like, something's going on in this midlife that I need to pay attention to more.
Well, what I'm excited about is that, you know, you mentioned pregnancy. Yeah. You mentioned doing all these surgeries. If you really think about it, and in the foreword of your book, Dr. Jennifer Ashton writes about the fact that for most women, the first time we truly get proactive about learning about our biology and our body for real
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Chapter 5: What role do lifestyle and stress play in hormonal health?
I had to figure out how to navigate a swimming pool. I had to figure out like that sort of stuff. We didn't have any of the tracking tools or any of that stuff. But it is interesting. That a woman's body and health is incredibly elegant and intelligent and designed in this system, right, around the fertility cycle and the menstruation cycle.
And honestly, most of us don't understand the role that hormones play.
Yeah, not at all. I think pregnancy, you said it perfectly there, is that's what society tells us, what our worth is in the reproductive years. But even as you said it, in your experience, which was similar to mine as far as getting your period, you're just kind of like, okay, I'm going to figure this out. But that was something that had to do with just self. right?
But no one was really paying attention to that. But when it came to now you have to take care of someone else, society's like, here's your importance. And then we dive into it because we're kind of feeding into that. Not to say that pregnancy is important, that we don't love it, but now we're fascinated and kind of giving more towards because we have to take care of someone else. When we Right.
Right.
Yeah, and I'm so excited to dig into the role that hormones play in your health. And on that point about women really thinking about this, and if you are listening and you're one of the millions of guys that listen to the show, this is a really important conversation to listen to because it's going to help you understand
the women and young women in your life, but it's also a resource that you can send to them because women are not little men. That is what Dr. Stacey Sims loves to say. And understanding the unique physiology and biology is critical. And we're going to talk today about how Hormones impact your skin and acne and hair and thinning hair and growing hair in places that you don't want.
How hormones impact all kinds of health conditions. And what I find to be very exciting is that finally we're at a moment where there is a lot of attention and education around menopause. But that's like 50 years into a woman's story. Truly understanding the role that hormones play, what they are, it impacts every aspect of your life.
And one other thing that you made me think about is that when I think, for example, just one human being ago, so just think about our moms. How old are you? I am 47. Okay, great. So I'm 56. If I think about our moms, they typically grew up in a generation where the messaging, at least in kind of like the 60s and 70s, was, okay, you know, you got to do it all. You got to look good.
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Chapter 6: How does age affect hormone levels?
Oh, no, that wasn't part of the memo.
No. And in fact, if you look at any of sort of the marketing and advertising and television shows that our mothers watched, there was no one helping them.
No.
They just had to do it all themselves. And so no wonder our moms neglected themselves. No wonder we don't really understand that putting ourselves first is really a skill that you need to learn. And society has conditioned us to think, oh, no, no, no, no. Go see a doctor when you're sick. Oh, no, no, no, no. Like I have a friend that has prolapse right now.
She's like, it literally feels like, which is, I guess, what, when your uterus is falling? Yeah, when things are kind of... coming out. Things are coming. One of my relatives had it. They would literally be like, it's like walking around with half a baby coming out of you. And I'm like, you're walking around? You should go see a doctor.
But that's taking care of self, and we're not trained to do that. And so let's just start by talking about hormones. How do you want to frame the conversation around hormones?
I think hormones are these beautiful, complex messengers. So it's like we have these little mailmen that are, or male women, going around delivering messages every day. Like they are consistent. They know what they're supposed to be doing. And our bodies are beautiful machines. And they're meant to be
Well, oil machines with these messengers giving off these messages, whether it's to an organ like the brain or the ovaries, hormones are probably one of the most important parts of how our machine runs.
So is it like a liquid? Like, what is a hormone? That is great. You know what I'm saying? Because as you're thinking messengers, I'm like, wait, is it the wiring? Is it liquid? Like, what actually is a hormone?
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Chapter 7: What is perimenopause and its symptoms?
And so as we go through our lives, we usually through our younger years in our reproductive life, have these hormones that are giving off these messages and they're just going like clockwork. They're like, I know where I'm supposed to be. I know what time I'm supposed to go off. And then we start to see that the hormones... have little glitches. They don't want to show up to work.
Some of the messages aren't being delivered. And that's where we start to see those changes and fluctuations, which is why exactly, like you said, we need to be having these conversations about hormones earlier so that we're aware before they just kind of kaput and they're out.
Well, you know, what's interesting is that, like, if you really think about the experience, whether you are male or female, is when puberty hits... The only thing that you hear from adults is, oh, hormones, all the hormones are raging. And nobody understands what it actually means or what the hormone is doing. So when you get to puberty, though, and the, quote, hormones start going crazy...
Are you not born with this level of hormones? You know what I'm saying? Like, why are hormones going crazy during puberty?
Yes, because they are now getting the response of we now biologically want to start to deliver our follicles, right? So we're born with the amount of eggs that we'll ever have. Okay. But the delivery of when they're gonna release every month
starts at a certain time because our bodies are again beautiful machines which they know when they're going to start this process so in the the ramping up for this actual delivery of like guys we got a job to do we got a new design of a job that we have to start yep everyone's running around because they're like where am i supposed to be okay you're there okay wait am i supposed to be doing this and over time which is when you start to see that fluctuation everyone's getting ready for the job
And then finally, they're like, we've got it down. We've done enough rehearsal. We're ready to do the job.
Okay, I think I've got, and I hope as you're listening or watching, you kind of have this understanding of messengers, number one, that are delivering a particular message and that your body has receptors all over it. that are designed to receive the message from the hormone.
It's receiving, delivery and receiving. It's the most important part, I would say, of a hormone because they want to get that message across. And then the hormones that disassemble, you know, so the job now is kind of falling apart, is what's happening in perimenopause and menopause. What do you mean, disassemble?
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Chapter 8: How can women manage hormone changes in their 30s and 40s?
And that's when you start to see the fluctuation of what happens to hormones in the perimenopausal phase. So they're kind of saying that job that we used to do for 30 plus years is of giving off an egg at a certain time every part of the month, we're not really doing that anymore.
So that's when you start to see the offloading of what happens with hormones, which is why we now experience all those symptoms in perimenopause.
Got it. And does the same thing happen to men if they experience low testosterone?
They do, but their decline is much slower over a longer timeframe.
Gotcha.
And so that's why you still can have men who are in their 70s and 80s still being able to have or contribute sperm and you get pregnant, but we no longer can after a certain age, which is why women experience menopause.
Gotcha. Okay. So I would love to break down each time period in a person's life and kind of understand exactly what's going on with your hormones and what hormones matter the most during that period of time. What are the key hormones that you need to actually understand are important and play a role in your health?
Well, all hormones for men and women obviously play that specific role. But when we speak to just women and how they're going to experience life, I think that's the best way to frame it is how are you experiencing life? What's contributing to the factors that really are kind of key and specific to women? I would say estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, as well as our thyroid hormones.
But men do have thyroid hormones as well, as well as estrogen and testosterone. We just have it in different levels. But for women, I would say estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and our thyroid hormones.
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