Midlife Advice | Perimenopause, Hormones and Midlife Women’s Health

If you're great at saving money but nervous about investing it, this episode is for you. How much should you actually keep in savings? Should you pay off debt or invest? And how do you find a financial advisor who's on your side?

Financial advisor and wealth manager Lisa Clements spent twenty-four years in corporate at companies like Meta and Accenture before starting Clear Springs Wealth, where she works mostly with women. She sees the same thing over and over: disciplined women with tens of thousands of dollars sitting in savings, earning very little, because investing feels too big and too risky to touch without a finance degree. (You don't need one. Lisa's clear about that.)

We get into the simple way Lisa decides how much to keep in savings, why your home equity counts as part of your portfolio, the interest-rate rule she uses for debt, and exactly what to ask before you hire an advisor. Plus the first thing to do this week if you've been avoiding your finances altogether.

What we get into:

- How much to keep in savings if you're single vs. partnered

- Why "near-term" money (a house, a big trip) stays out of the market

- How advisors use risk scores, and splitting your money into different risk buckets

- Pay off debt or invest? How the interest rate decides it

- Where to learn investing basics without feeling lost (Investopedia, brokerage education centers, free consults)

- What "fiduciary" and "assets under management" mean, and the fee structures to understand

- Why you should ask any advisor about their "why"

- The first step: taking inventory of every account you have

About Lisa Clements:

Lisa Clements is a financial advisor and wealth manager who helps women build financial confidence without the jargon, judgment, or sky-high fees of traditional firms. 

clearspringswealth.com | @clearspringswealth

This episode is for educational purposes only and isn't personalized financial advice.

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

Ever notice that when things are finally going well, you can't fully enjoy it? You feel good for about five minutes, then you're either moving the goalposts or bracing for something to go wrong. This solo episode is about why your brain does that, and how celebrating small wins trains your nervous system to hold more joy.

Celebrating isn't just for weddings, graduations and birthdays. The more you celebrate the small stuff, the more reasons you find to celebrate. I share why this lesson from my mentors felt so counterintuitive to a lifelong goalpost-mover like me, and what's shifted since I started practicing it.

Then we practice together. I'm celebrating two big things: Midlife Advice landing in the top 2.5% of all podcasts globally (thank you!!), and the official launch of my new 6-week group breathwork program, the Keep Your Cool Collective. 

And before you head off into your day, I'm asking you to find something of your own to celebrate.

What we get into:

• Why your brain resists joy when life is going well, and what "waiting for the other shoe to drop" is really about
• How moving the goalposts keeps you stuck in hustle, head-down mode
• Why celebrating the action you took, not just the outcome, is important
• Simple ways to celebrate in five minutes or less 
• How breathwork expands your capacity to handle everyday triggers, like hearing "Mom!" for the 47th time

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

You used to be able to handle so much more stress than you can now. Work, kids, travel, hard conversations, not enough sleep, and you kept going. Now your neck is always tight, your digestion is off, you're wired at 11pm and exhausted at 3pm, and you can't figure out what changed.

Hormones are part of that. But there's a second thing happening, and almost nobody talks about it: your body may be carrying the physical residue of decades of stress it never got to finish processing.

Dr. Carli Axford, a chiropractor with more than 30 years of clinical experience (who has never cracked a back!) and the founder of the Spinal Flow Technique, is here to get specific about what "the body stores stress" actually means. Not metaphorically. Physiologically. Where it goes, what it feels like under a practitioner's hands, and why it tends to surface in your 40s and 50s after years of you managing just fine.

Carli explains why women who come in with digestive problems often have stored emotions higher up in the spine, how she can tell the difference between chemical stress and emotional stress by touch, and the one question that tells you whether that knot between your shoulder blades is from your workout or from something you have been carrying for years. 

What we get into:

• What "storing stress" actually means physiologically, and why the spine is where it lands
• The three kinds of stress, emotional, physical, and chemical, and how each one feels different in the body
• Why women who come in with digestive issues often have an older stress pattern sitting higher in the spine
• Why your capacity for stress drops in perimenopause, and what fluctuating estrogen and progesterone have to do with your nervous system's resilience
• How to tell whether that knot in your back is a pulled muscle or a pattern you have carried since childhood
• What you can do at home, in a few minutes, to move your body out of fight or flight

Dr. Carli Axford is the founder of the Spinal Flow Technique, a healing modality now practiced by thousands of certified practitioners worldwide. She is recognized internationally for her work on stress, trauma, and the body's capacity to heal itself. Her book Awaken Your Spinal Flow is forthcoming from Hay House in May 2027.

Connect with Dr. Carli Axford:

drcarliaxford.org | @dr.carli.axford

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

Breathwork for anxiety sounds almost too easy. Too obvious. But the mechanism behind it is measurable. This episode explores anxiety as a body problem, not a mind problem, and the way you're breathing all day might be what's keeping it going.

Sigmar Berg is the founder of Lovetuner, a breathwork and sound healing tool featured in CNN, the LA Times, and Buzzfeed, and he has spent over a decade studying the intersection of breath, nervous system regulation, and frequency healing. In this conversation, he explains why shallow, fast, chest-level breathing keeps the nervous system locked in fight-or-flight mode, what one conscious extended exhale actually does to your physiology, and how adding sound at 528 Hz amplifies the effect.

If anxiety has been creeping in, especially in your 40s and 50s when hormones can make it so much worse, this conversation gives you a framework and a practice you can use the same day.

What we get into:

- Why anxiety often starts in the body, not the brain, and what's happening physiologically when it does

- How shallow, fast breathing sends a danger signal to your nervous system even when you're just sitting at your desk

- What makes the extended exhale so effective for calming the nervous system fast

- Whether specific breathing patterns like box breathing or 4-7-8 actually matter, or if we're overcomplicating it

- What 528 Hz is, why Sigmar built a tool around it, and what the science actually says

- How to start a breathwork habit without a 30-minute practice

Connect with Sigmar Berg:

lovetuner.com | @lovetuner528hz on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube | Book: One Journey

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

If you've caught yourself thinking "I don't feel like myself" and you can't quite put your finger on why, this one's for you. Hormones play a role. Being stretched impossibly thin plays a role. But there's a third factor that I think is fundamental, and it's one I never hear anyone talking about: interoception.

Interoception is your ability to sense and interpret what's actually happening inside your body (like hunger, thirst, stress, emotion). When it's working, you catch yourself before you're hangry, before you snap at your kids, before you're running on fumes. When it's not working, and for so many of us in midlife it's not, you don't know you're stressed until you're yelling, or so numb you're running the whole day on autopilot without feeling a single thing.

I'm breaking down exactly how chronic stress shuts your interoception down, what that actually looks like in daily life, and the somatic practices, including breathwork, that bring it back online. 

Stick around to the end, because I'm inviting you to two free virtual breathwork sessions where you can feel the shift for yourself instead of just hearing me talk about it.

What we get into:

• What interoception is and how it works
• The specific ways chronic stress shuts your body's signals off
• Why you might feel completely numb one day and completely overwhelmed the next
• The research on interoception and stress, explained in plain language
• How breathwork helps you tune back in and hear your body again
• Two free virtual breathwork sessions happening soon 

Resources:

PubMed article: Interoception and Stress

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

ADHD in midlife women is the topic my audience requested most in my latest Instagram poll - and now it's here! If you've been wondering whether your scattered, overloaded brain is ADHD, perimenopause, or just life, you are in the right place.

Today I’m speaking with Dr. Jennifer Dall, Ed.D., an ADHD specialist with a doctorate in educational psychology, a background in special education, and her own late-in-life ADHD diagnosis, to talk about everything women over 40 actually want to know about ADHD.

What you'll hear:

• How ADHD shows up in high-achieving women, and why it looks nothing like the stereotype
• Why perimenopause doesn't cause ADHD but can turn the volume all the way up on symptoms you've had your whole life
• Why so many Gen X women went undiagnosed for decades, and what the stories we were told about ourselves have to do with it
• Whether you need a formal ADHD diagnosis and what that evaluation actually involves
• What you can start doing today to work with your brain instead of fighting it
• The ADHD strengths that high-achieving women carry without ever recognizing them as strengths

Connect with Dr. Jennifer Dall: 

adhdholistically.com | @adhd.holistically 

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

What if your future self could travel back in time to right now and show you exactly what you're missing?

That's the exercise we're playing with in today's episode. I've been using it myself, and it shifts my perspective, changes my energy, and influences the trajectory of my whole day in a really positive way. And it couldn't be easier.

I first came across this concept while listening to Dr. Benjamin Hardy's book, Be Your Future Self Now. He shares a story about a completely average evening that tugged at my heart strings. And then a text from my 84-year-old dad gave me the chance to try it in real life.

In this episode:

• The future self visualization exercise you can start using on the most ordinary moments of your day
• How to apply it when you're feeling irritated, impatient, or just done
• Why this one simple shift is a powerful way to change your energy and your whole outlook on a regular Tuesday

I can’t wait for you to try this. After you do, click the link below to send me a text and tell me about it!

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

Muscle and joint pain in perimenopause is not just a hormone problem, and it's not just aging. Physical therapist and musculoskeletal specialist Stacey Roberts explains what's really driving pain in midlife women, and what to do about it. Her answers might surprise you.

We talk about:

• Why your hormones were acting as your body's natural anti-inflammatories, and what happens when they drop in perimenopause and menopause
• The non-drug, non-injection options for joint and muscle pain that most women never hear about
• Why cortisol being too low (not just too high) can cause nighttime inflammation, especially in high-achieving women
• How to tell the difference between normal workout soreness and pain you should actually stop for
• Why the place where you feel pain is not always where the problem is (a weak hip causing foot pain, for example)
• The vicious cycle of hurt, stop moving, get tighter, hurt more, and how to break out of it
• Why heavy lifting is not the only way to build strength and protect your joints
• What to do first if you've stopped working out because something always hurts

Stacey Roberts PT, RN, MSN has over 30 years of experience helping patients live pain-free. Stacey owns New You Health and Wellness in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, combining advanced manual therapy, cutting-edge technology, and functional medicine. She is the author of the number one bestselling book The Pain Free Formula and host of The Pain Free Formula podcast.

Connect with Stacey

NewYouHealthandWellness.com | The Pain Free Formula book | The Pain Free Formula podcast | @newyouhealthandwellness

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

Do your perimenopause symptoms like brain fog, weight gain, and sleep issues feel like they are so much worse than your friend’s? Your DNA might explain why.

Today I’m speaking with Kim Ressler, Founder and CEO of SNiP Nutrigenomics, to unpack the growing science of nutrigenomics and what your genetic blueprint reveals about how you experience perimenopause and menopause. 

If you've ever wondered why your symptoms feel so much worse than everyone else's, this episode has an answer worth hearing.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why menopause is more genetically influenced than most women realize
• How your DNA shapes specific symptoms like brain fog, weight gain, insomnia, anxiety, hot flashes and more
• What genetic testing can tell you about your menopause experience
• How to use your DNA to make smarter nutrition and lifestyle decisions without going deep into biohacking

Guest:

Kim Ressler, Founder and CEO, SNiP Nutrigenomics

snipnutrition.com

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong

Low libido in midlife is likely not just your hormones. There are other factors at play that are important to know about. Let’s talk about what's actually shutting down desire for midlife women, and what helps bring it back.

Brooke Bralove, LCSW-C and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and I talk about what women over 40 actually need to know about low desire, sexual ruts in long-term relationships, and how unresolved trauma can live in the body and affect intimacy for decades.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why familiarity and too much emotional safety can kill eroticism in long-term relationships
• The myth of spontaneous desire, and what's actually more realistic
• How mental overload, exhaustion, and resentment shut down libido faster than any hormone shift
• Why "willingness to try" is more useful than waiting to be in the mood
• How trauma, big and small, can show up in the body and affect intimacy years later
• What Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is, and how it's helping women resolve sexual trauma in as few as one session
• One thing you can do this week to reconnect with your own desire

Brooke Bralove, LCSW-C, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, psychotherapist, and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist with over 20 years in private practice. 

brookebralove.com | @BrookeBralovePsychotherapy 

Chapters:

00:00 Understanding Low Libido in Midlife Women
03:11 The Role of Familiarity and Newness in Relationships
05:57 The Myth of Spontaneous Desire
08:55 The Importance of Communication and Willingness
11:49 Addressing Resentment and Unmet Needs
14:21 Exploring Root Causes of Low Libido
17:03 Healing from Trauma and Its Impact on Desire
19:49 Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) Explained
22:37 Practical Steps to Reconnect with Desire

I want to hear from you. Send me a text or voicemail!

Jessica's freebies and resources:

😴 Sleep better tonight with my free 10-minute audio breathwork session. (https://your.belongwellness.com/sleep)

⚡️Join the Keep Your Cool Collective, my 6-week group breathwork experience for women over 40 who are ready to feel f*cking GREAT. This program launches October 5th. (https://your.belongwellness.com/hnly-beta-sales-page)

✨For more midlife advice on perimenopause, hormone health, nervous system regulation, and living with purpose in your 40s and 50s follow me: @midlifeadvicepodcast | @heyjessicalong