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The Hidden Stress Behind Your Hormone Imbalance | Dr. Sue Morter

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Release Date: 10/08/2026

A Harvard Doctor on the Menopause Education Gap and How to Advocate for Yourself | Dr. Deborah Kwolek

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

You finally get the appointment. You tell your doctor you're not sleeping, the weight is climbing, and your moods feel like someone else's. You walk out with a prescription for an antidepressant, or with nothing at all. Dr. Deborah Kwolek, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of Harvard's Women's Health and Menopause course, joins me to talk about why so many doctors were never taught menopause care and what she's doing to change it. We cover the exact questions to bring to your next appointment, your estrogen by the numbers, the labs to know, who may need to...

Brain Defenders: How Hormones and Metabolism Shape Your Brain’s Future | Dr. David Perlmutter

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Your brain has its own immune cells, and the way you live each day helps decide whether they protect you or turn on you. Two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer's are women. Living longer doesn't explain that gap, girlfriend. So what does? I'm so happy to welcome back my dear friend Dr. David Perlmutter, board-certified neurologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Defenders. He explains microglia, the immune cells that make up about 10% of your brain. On a good day, they're like firefighters in the firehouse, quietly repairing the blood-brain barrier and helping your...

The Hidden Stress Behind Your Hormone Imbalance | Dr. Sue Morter

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

A divorce. A layoff. A season where you held everything together for everyone. Your body flipped into fight or flight to protect you, exactly the way it was built to. But what happens when the stress passes and your nervous system never gets the message? Bioenergetic medicine expert Dr. Sue Morter, author of The Energy Codes and The Anatomy of Awakening, explains the hidden stress your body can keep carrying for years. She shows how that old emergency ripples through your adrenals, your thyroid, and your hormones in midlife. Then she walks me through her first two steps. The wise belly breath,...

What Caused Your Cancer? The Question Nobody Asked Dr. Nasha Winters

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

When a woman sits across from Dr. Anna after a breast cancer diagnosis, she asks one question. What did your oncologist say caused it? Almost every time, the answer is a blank stare. Dr. Nasha Winters has lived that silence from the inside. By 19, she had collected a decade of diagnoses, including PCOS, endometriosis, IBS, anxiety, and thyroid trouble. Then she landed in the ER with a grapefruit-sized tumor and was told she was too ill for treatment. In this conversation, she shares the three things she credits with changing her path. She also explains how childhood trauma can shape the immune...

Leptin Resistance in Menopause: The Hormone Nobody Tests | Sarah Kleiner

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Tell me if you've heard this before. You're sleeping. You're eating the way you were told to eat. Your labs come back normal, and you still know something is off. That's the woman I had in mind for this conversation. After twenty years in hormone and longevity medicine, here's what I keep coming back to. Most of what supports your hormones comes down to the foundations, like light, darkness, and when you eat, and so many of them cost you nothing. My guest, Sarah Kleiner, is board-certified through the Quantum Biology Institute and the creator of My Circadian App. She came to this work the hard...

What's Really Aging Your Skin (And the Diagnosis Doctors Miss) | Dr. Mamina Turegano

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Dr. Anna sits down with triple board-certified dermatologist, internist, and dermatopathologist Dr. Mamina Turegano for a deep dive into skin health from the inside out. They cover the real drivers of collagen breakdown, which anti-aging ingredients and procedures actually hold up to decades of evidence, and how to build a sunscreen routine you don't have to second-guess. The conversation then turns to two of the toughest conditions in women's health, rosacea and vulvar lichen sclerosus, with practical, root-cause-informed guidance for both. This is the episode to bookmark if you've ever...

From Blindsided to Empowered, Four Coaches' Real Stories | Dr. Anna Cabeca

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

I was sitting in my studio in Dallas with four women who had just spent five months inside my Magic Menopause Certification, and every one of them got emotional before we even started recording. That tells you something about what this season of life actually does to a woman who thought she had it handled. As a triple board-certified OB/GYN and the creator of the Keto-Green method and the Magic Menopause Coach Certification, I sat down with graduating coaches Chelsea, Song, Tara, and Jamie for a live, unscripted panel on everything nobody warns you about before perimenopause hits. In...

Menopause Is Natural. Suffering Is Optional. — Four Coaches Share Their Stories

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Grab your Mighty Maca and get cozy. In this episode of The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast, Dr. Anna Cabeca sits down with the very first graduates of her Magic Menopause Hormone Restoration Coaching Certification, Emily, Ann, Amy and Angela. Four women, four completely different paths into menopause, and one shared mission, making sure no woman has to go through this alone. We're talking surgical menopause, the myths that keep women suffering in silence, the postpartum "mini menopause" nobody warns you about, and what it actually takes to feel like yourself again. Key Timestamps 0:00 Welcome...

Are You Being Medically Gaslit? | Dr. Efrat LaMandre

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

You leave your doctor's office with "everything looks normal" ringing in your ears, but your body is telling you something else. This week Dr. Anna talks with nurse practitioner Dr. Efrat LaMandre, aka Dr. E, about medical gaslighting, why "you're fine" often means "I ran out of tools," and how to advocate for yourself without burning every bridge with your doctor. You'll learn: The difference between "normal" and "optimal," and why it matters What "pre-disease" is and why most providers aren't equipped for it How to describe your symptoms so your doctor actually listens Why one...

Midlife Isn't a Breakdown, It's Your Upgrade | Chalene Johnson

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Have you done everything right and still watched the scale refuse to move? I sat down with fitness industry veteran Chalene Johnson, who built her career telling women exactly how to lose weight, and then walked straight into that same wall herself in perimenopause. Her hormone panel came back "dialed in." She was still doing every workout, every macro track, every habit that used to work. The weight stayed anyway, until she found the piece nobody had pointed her toward, the link between cortisol, insulin resistance, and a metabolism that stops cooperating no matter how hard you push. We get...

More Episodes

A divorce. A layoff. A season where you held everything together for everyone.

Your body flipped into fight or flight to protect you, exactly the way it was built to. But what happens when the stress passes and your nervous system never gets the message?

Bioenergetic medicine expert Dr. Sue Morter, author of The Energy Codes and The Anatomy of Awakening, explains the hidden stress your body can keep carrying for years. She shows how that old emergency ripples through your adrenals, your thyroid, and your hormones in midlife.

Then she walks me through her first two steps. The wise belly breath, which helps engage the calming side of your nervous system. And pratyahara, an ancient practice for calling your energy back from the people and situations that drain you.

Dr. Sue and I also get into what releasing anger means (hint, it's not dumping it on someone), how to work with a feeling without needing the whole story, and why meditation can feel impossible at first.

If you've been doing everything right and still feel wired, tired, and on edge, Gorgeous, this one is for you.

Key takeaways

Your nervous system can stay locked in fight or flight long after a stressful event ends, because it never received the signal that the danger passed.
That hidden stress keeps your adrenals pumping out cortisol, and Dr. Sue describes the thyroid stepping in to compensate until your whole hormonal system starts to roller-coaster.
Your body works on a priority basis, so survival comes before repair, detox, and renewal.
A slow belly breath, low first and then rising into the chest, is Dr. Sue's simplest first step for telling your body the coast is clear.
Pratyahara means drawing your senses back onto yourself, so you can stay in a hard conversation without handing over your energy.
Releasing anger means feeling and moving the energy in your body, not unloading it on someone else.
If meditation feels impossible, build body awareness first so stillness becomes easier.

Key Timestamps

01:00 Growing up with a pioneer of energy medicine
03:05 Root cause versus symptom care
05:00 The hidden stress keeping you in fight or flight
06:15 The trap door between the thalamus and hypothalamus
09:25 Step one, the belly breath
13:15 Why your belly is wise
14:15 The doorway exercise
18:20 What if you're the one who triggers someone
26:15 The two systems that run your body
31:30 What releasing anger means
40:00 When meditation feels impossible
42:30 Take it to the body practices

Memorable quotes

"It's doing the right thing, but it's doing it at the wrong time." Dr. Sue Morter
"Work with the energy instead of the label, work with the energy instead of the story." Dr. Sue Morter
"We are the CEO of our body, and the best years of our lives are not behind us. They are waiting for us." Dr. Anna Cabeca

Resources mentioned