77: The Hidden Clues of Your Reproductive Health: Jessica Preston Reveals What Every Woman Must Know

Struggling with infertility is becoming all too common, but what if we’ve been looking at it all wrong? In this episode, I sit down with Jessica Preston to explore fertility through a functional medicine lens. We dive into the hidden signs of reproductive health, the crucial role of lab testing, and how stress and inflammation impact fertility. Jessica shares her personal journey, shedding light on the challenges young women face with irregular cycles and the lifestyle shifts that can make all the difference. This conversation is about empowerment—understanding your body, your cycle, and the steps you can take to create an optimal environment for fertility and overall health.

In this Episode, we cover-
- Fertility is a reflection of overall health.
- Stress, gut health, and inflammation play a major role.
- Conventional lab tests often miss crucial hormone imbalances.
- Cycle irregularities—especially in teens—can signal deeper issues.
- Holistic approaches, like breathwork and self-care, can improve fertility.

P.S. Your health journey starts long before you’re ready to conceive. Whether you're thinking about future fertility or just want to optimize your well-being, now is the time to start listening to your body!

Episode Timeline:

00:00 Understanding Fertility and Its Importance
01:30 Jessica's Personal Journey with Fertility
04:40 Signs of Reproductive Health
08:05 The Role of Lab Tests in Fertility
11:14 Estrogen Dominance and PCOS
14:17 Comprehensive Testing for Fertility
18:01 The Impact of Inflammation on Fertility
23:11 Managing Stress and Its Effects on Fertility
28:06 Breaking the Cycle of Sympathetic Activation
32:14 The Importance of Self-Care in Fertility
37:50 Addressing Cycle Irregularity in Teenagers
38:03 Navigating Teenage Health and Fertility
41:37 Understanding Menstrual Health and Birth Control Options
49:00 The Importance of Regular Menstrual Cycles
54:12 Holistic Approaches to Fertility and Wellness
01:01:27 Addressing Infertility: Causes and Solutions
01:12:31 Promoting Awareness and Education on Fertility

Jessica Preston is a holistic health advocate, wellness entrepreneur, and expert in women's reproductive health. With a deep passion for educating and empowering women, she specializes in natural approaches to fertility, hormone balance, and overall well-being. Through her work, Jessica helps women understand their bodies, navigate fertility challenges, and take a proactive approach to their health.

Tune in to learn how to support your body naturally and take control of your reproductive health!

To talk to a member of Dr. Jenn's team and learn more about working privately with RHMD, visit:
https://jennsimmons.simplero.com/page/377266?kuid=327aca17-5135-44cf-9210-c0b77a56e26d&kref=vOKy0sAiorrK

To get your copy of Dr. Jenn's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SmartWomansBreastCancerGuide

To purchase the auria breast cancer screening test go here https://auria.care/ and use the code DRJENN20 for 20% Off.

Connect with Dr. Jenn:
Website: https://www.realhealthmd.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJennSimmons
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjennsimmons/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.jennsimmons

Transcript

Dr. Jenn Simmons (00:01.56)
Hi, it's Dr. Jen. Today we are going to talk about something that I think we do not shine enough light on, that we do not talk about enough, and we don't talk about what the implications mean. So today we're going to talk about fertility. And I know it seems strange to talk about fertility on my podcast, but as I always say, breast health is health. And at the same time, fertility is health. And we do not recognize in our system

the implications, the meanings of not being fertile. And what typically happens is that we make no preparations for fertility and we get to that point in our lives where we want to procreate and then so many people and an increasing number of people struggle with fertility. And then what do we do rather than dealing with the problem, rather than looking for the root cause of infertility, we force a pregnancy on people.

And then that can just gets kicked down the road until they wind up in my office. So I brought Jessica Preston here today to talk about because she is the master of fertility and has spent her professional career in this area, probably because of her own personal journey. So Jessica, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here today to talk about this.

ever increasing problem.

Jessica Preston (01:30.895)
Thank you so much for having me, Dr. John.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:33.934)
Why don't you start by telling us why fertility is so, helping people with fertility is so important to you.

Jessica Preston (01:41.765)
Of course, I'll give you a little bit of background for me. So I did have my own fertility journey. Prior to my fertility journey, my first degree was in biochemistry, then in medicine. So I'm a physician assistant, spent 20 years in OBGYN helping people with a focus on fertility, mostly because of their needs, the ever growing need. We know now the risk of infertility is one in four. So it's one in five, 19 % on the rise at this point.

And I found that I was struggling with infertility, found ended up pregnant on with medication through the conventional medicine method, and then started helping people in a more alternative way. The reason being I had a pregnancy that was complicated preterm labor. I ended up with two babies, I had twins. They were born early three pounds each. My son assessed for autism at 18 months, my daughter with impulse control issues.

So I unfortunately trained in functional medicine, healed my children through functional medicine and really felt I needed to heal all the babies and then thought prevent it in the first place. So I was really going to help egg and sperm development and health more so than the infertility aspect. And when I did that, I found that we were reversing infertility and that was where it all went. It all started. But the truth is exactly what you said. When we're looking at infertility,

It is our first sign that something isn't going right in our body at a younger age. And we're seeing it, it used to be a concern in our 30s, now it's in our 20s. So we're seeing the same stats, the same 19%. So one in five people struggling to conceive when they're even in their 20s, no one knows what to do about it. So it is about not just forcing a pregnancy on our bodies, it really is looking at the root cause, the why.

Why are we here? And when we can help with that fertility, healing our body in the fertility space, it has that beautiful ripple effect of improving our health overall.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (03:47.406)
Absolutely. So I'm curious, how does someone, I mean in this country, unfortunately, as you very well know, no one

worries about something until they failed, right? Like no one is prophylactically saying, is my health the best that it can be? They don't deal with their health until they have a major health crisis. Even minor health issues don't get dealt with. It has to be somehow affecting your life or it has to be a crisis. So I would love for you to kind of...

lay out to start, how would people know in advance if they would have fertility issues or not? Like what are the signs of reproductive health?

Jessica Preston (04:40.133)
Right, thank you for that. So when we look at our menstrual cycle, we're supposed to have one period every month. So one every 28 days. That's when you have a period on the first day that you bleed is day one of your period. If you counted out every day until the next day one, that would be your length of your cycle. So that is normally, normally 28 days. So if we normally have a 28 day cycle, we have a light to moderate flow.

not too light, not too heavy, and I know that's really so subjective, so that's a challenging part to describe to people. Having some cramping is normal, but debilitating cramping is not. So if you have periods, menstrual cycles that are shorter than 28 days, longer than 32, and I'm being very particular with my window here because we ovulate two weeks, 14 days prior to that first day of our period.

So we really want that ovulation right around day 14, but it's okay. We can have some variety in that. But when we're over 32 days, some people say 35, I'm a little tighter with that with 32. If you're under 27, I would wanna know because that ovulatory cycle can be an indicator that we are struggling with fertility. Really heavy cramping can be an issue with fertility, very, very heavy, heavy flow with lots of clots or very, very light scant flow.

People think they're lucky, but sometimes that's an indicator that they're actually not ovulating.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (06:13.646)
is if you do not have a regular cycle in that if sometimes it's 28 days and sometimes it's 32 days and sometimes it's 29, does that mean that you're having ovulatory dysfunction?

Jessica Preston (06:30.341)
So it could be ovulatory dysfunction, like primary ovulatory dysfunction, or it could be something that is implicating that ovulatory dysfunction. Your thyroid might be implicated in some fashion. Any kind of autoimmune can cause an issue. Your blood sugar and your insulin, that can cause an issue as well. So there are a lot of reasons why you could have that irregular cycle, which then

ultimately does mean that there's likely an ovulatory issue. Ovulatory issues are a major problem. You've heard of polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS. That is something that we can see as well, which is an ovulatory issue, but it has so many factors. So it's not, we don't want to just pinpoint ovulation in itself as with anything with functional medicine as a whole-ism lens. So there are so many aspects to look at it.

The issue that we're really seeing a lot of now is people are getting normal, normal lab tests and they're not able to get pregnant and they are not ovulating or not ovulating appropriately or they believe they're ovulating with those LH surge kits that they're getting online, but they're not accurate and you're not actually ovulating.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (07:42.008)
So what is it?

What is it about, like what should people be looking for that would set off an alarm bell in that what's happening now is you just said all your labs are normal. Is the problem that...

we're not measuring the right labs? Or how is that normal tag getting assigned? And what should people be looking for? I guess my question is, what is ideal? What labs should be measured and what is ideal?

Jessica Preston (08:21.143)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, that's a wonderful question. So we are looking at all of your sex hormone labs. When we're looking in conventional medicine space, we are looking at your estrogen, your progesterone. It depends on who you're seeing. For me, I always get your testosterone for a woman because your range. They can call you normal, but that's for men's ranges, not for women's ranges. So we want to look at testosterone. lot of FSH, LH.

A lot of people are looking at AMH, antimullerian hormone at this point in time. I'd love to talk about that for at some point when we can. It's a test that when we look at it, it can be scary because it can be low. Historically, it was thought to be an implicator of your egg reserve. It can be an indicator, but it implies that you can't change it, but you can. With our functional medicine intervention, you can actually change that and bring that up.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (09:15.0)
Have you seen that happen? Have you seen that number go up? Yeah.

Jessica Preston (09:16.78)
I do that all the time. Always, always all the time. And it's actually, it's a beautiful thing to watch because when we do, when I see somebody's records and their AMH is low and we take a look at it, it's like, me 90 days and we're going to see an improvement. And people are, they feel relief and the relief is so important that they feel so that they can know, but they can know that they do have this egg reserve if they don't take our word for it. But we do have a really high success rates. Usually they do take our word for it.

On the journey as they start getting into the whole making change they can feel it you can feel the difference So a lot of the labs for a conventional medicine. I was in conventional medicine for almost 20 years and there are normal ranges and there are Ratios that we can look at I don't want to get too in-depth for audience So there are ratios we can look at that say this is abnormal. So there's an FSH LH ratio that can look abnormal for PCOS

And that is one of those indicators where we say this is something that means you may have PCOS along with your history and your ultrasound results. So we can put all of that information together. But if that ratio isn't off, you still may not be ovulating appropriately. We aren't looking at the right ranges. And we're not looking at necessarily the right testing either. So we don't look at estrogen metabolites in conventional medicine, but we do in functional medicine. And that's important.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (10:35.853)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (10:42.743)
And the other part, when we look at functional medicine for your viewers, if they want to read about something, the best thing I would look at for reading is estrogen dominance. So that's not something discussed in a conventional medicine lens, but in functional medicine it is. And so that basically is more of a ratio issue and also an estrogen metabolism. And I know you know all about this, yeah, issue.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (11:03.598)
You

So that's a ratio of estrogen to progesterone.

And is that not being measured in conventional medicine? How else are they diagnosing something like PCOS? Because isn't that a function of estrogen dominance?

Jessica Preston (11:20.281)
What's right.

Jessica Preston (11:28.387)
Right, it is, but estrogen dominance is not a term that is used in the conventional medicine space. So what they're looking at is, your ranges normal when it comes to estrogen progesterone, FSH, LH? They're looking at normal range when they're talking about a PCOS diagnosis. And what we do a lot more in functional medicine is also symptom-based. So PCOS is a great example because it's so common, it's so prevalent. At the same time, polycystic ovarian syndrome is a syndrome

Dr. Jenn Simmons (11:43.554)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (11:56.197)
So when we're talking syndromes, we're talking about collections of symptoms. And so in conventional medicine, we do collect those symptoms for you so we can call you PCOS. And it seems to be more of a loosey goosey diagnosis that can actually get people scared going online, reading PCOS and seeing you're not going to be able to have a baby, which then in turn causes more stress, which causes more of an influx and uptake in cortisol, and then in turn a decrease in progesterone from our own physiologic function.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (12:08.526)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (12:25.913)
So we need to get a handle on this, get better education out there, and then talk to people about what do syndromes mean and understand that there really are lifestyle factors that we can make a change with so we can move you out of those ranges. That being said, we are seeing people with PCOS symptomatically with normal ranges. And there's something now called skinny PCOS. Historically, we thought it was for people that were just overweight, bad acne, facial hair.

That's not necessarily it anymore. You can have someone 105 pounds, fair complexed and perfect skin like yours and the perfect picture and not knowing what it is, but it's a skinny PCOS picture. So we're moving out of the range of being able to look at these labs where we can say PCOS proper. Estrogen dominance is more of a broader spectrum view. I'm trying to think of...

in the functional medicine lens, catches more in that than that narrow lane of PCOS, which is trying to now have outcrops of skinny PCOS and how many symptoms, which we have in medicine, as you know, there's a requirement of how many symptoms you have to have or how many labs studies that are abnormal you have to have to have a diagnosis. In functional medicine, we're a little bit more catching that because we've seen it so much and because we can see exactly the estrogen dominant picture.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (13:55.03)
Yeah. So we talked about measuring estrogen and their metabolites, progesterone, testosterone, FSH, LH, AMH. What else are you looking for that is different than the workup that people are generally getting inside of their conventional medicine offices?

Jessica Preston (14:17.625)
Yeah, yeah, for me, I wanna look at your fasting insulin, a hemoglobin A1C. I wanna check your thyroid at TSH, a free T4, a reverse T3. Those I always wanna know because when we have, we know our adrenals, which is our cortisol, tend to have an issue before our thyroid does. And when we look at a picture of a woman who is in a high stress state where we're...

in that estrogen dominance or even we're just in that high stress state where we're presuming that's our picture. I want to know what's going on prior to, what's going on earlier on in that cycle? Do we have something that we need to look at there? I want to look at your prolactin level. I want to look at, I don't always care for a cortisol level. I'll be very honest. The cortisol measurements, first thing in the morning, those aren't accurate. I don't love those.

I will do some of the saliva tests that look at our circadian rhythm of our hormones and in addition, how is our cortisol pattern, because that can give us some information that I'm happy to look at as well.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (15:24.418)
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's far more reliable. I have found in my practice is knowing what is your cortisol when you wake up? What is it 30 minutes later? What is it 60 minutes later? Where's your mid afternoon? Where's your evening cortisol? That I think is a really important indicator. And then if you're not sleeping, what's your cortisol in the middle of the night? Because all of these things that

Jessica Preston (15:31.139)
Yeah.

Jessica Preston (15:37.227)
Exactly.

Jessica Preston (15:49.356)
Absolutely.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (15:53.004)
That cortisol pattern really matters, right? Like if you're low in the morning and high at night, your body thinks that you're crossing an ocean or you are constantly being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. It's not letting you rest at night because you're on high alert, right?

Jessica Preston (15:56.004)
Yeah.

Jessica Preston (16:11.513)
Right. So when we're doing our in-between testing, I think for your audience who might be saying maybe that's for me, the things to look out for yourself is are you waking up in the middle of the night between 2 and 4 a.m.? Are you having that middle of the night awakening? I want to know sleep pattern. So for a lot of what we're doing as well for what you're doing is taking the history that's really in depth to see what is your life like on a day?

And so do you wake up refreshed in the morning? Are you struggling to get out of bed? The other question is, has that been your entire life? Do you sleep well through the night? Do you fall asleep quickly? Too quickly is also an issue, right? So do we fall asleep? How long does it take? I don't remember my head hitting a pillow. If that's the case, we need to know about that too. And then are you waking up between 2 and 4 in the morning and then unable to get to sleep? What's happening during that time? Do you wake up because you have to go to the bathroom?

Dr. Jenn Simmons (16:49.026)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (17:04.121)
Do you wake up and then your mind starts going and you can't stop it? So much of our history and what we're doing on a daily basis is so important to think of. And that's something I really want people to think about, not just for fertility, for with your work or any space with hormonal balance. That is a very important thing to think about.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (17:23.734)
Yeah, absolutely. So you're measuring a full thyroid panel, like you said, maybe you're getting that five, five point cortisol test, you're looking at insulin and glucose in a fasting way and the hemoglobin A1C, which is a measure of your glucose over a three month period of time. What about

Jessica Preston (17:35.183)
Yeah

Jessica Preston (17:47.865)
the three months.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (17:52.138)
CRP, what about vitamin D? Where do they figure into what you're thinking about?

Jessica Preston (17:54.841)
Yes, okay. Perfect. Okay, yes. I didn't know how far in depth we're going here. So, yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (18:01.597)
we can do a deep dive. My audience is real astute.

Jessica Preston (18:05.709)
Okay, wonderful. Okay, I never know. always want to make it so people can understand. So everything comes from inflammation in our mind. And also I want to think about our polyvagal lens also. So polyvagal theory, is where our, let's make that simpler. Although your audience probably is aware of polyvagal theory too, but it's an autonomic nervous system balance thought. So basically it's are we,

triggered into a stress space and what happens with that. And mast cell activation syndrome. People probably know about that as well.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (18:40.314)
I don't know that that one that one may be pretty in depth so but you can you can talk about it

Jessica Preston (18:43.479)
Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. So we are seeing so much more of an increase in illness across the board. And as we said, fertility is what hits you first or earliest. It's a warning flag. It's a red flag that says something's wrong. Infertility. Yes, infertility. And so when that happens and that red flag is waved, we need to start thinking about everything in our entire wholism, our entire system. So when we have a stress mast cell activation syndrome,

Dr. Jenn Simmons (18:57.322)
Infertility, infertility, yeah.

Jessica Preston (19:12.133)
When we have a stressor that occurs, we have it in our mind. The first thing happens is stress occurs and our most primitive innate immune cell is a mast cell. That degranulates, causes an inflammatory response. that actually, think about it, like people get stressed out and they get flushed. They get red on the back of the neck or whatever it may be. This is a normal response and it's gotten out of hand. Okay, so that is affecting the majority of us.

Is it actually affecting us to a point where we can't control it? The stats are about 30 % of people have mast cell activation, which is an inflammatory cascade through your body, which is out of control in a way that our nervous system is not able to calm it down. So it's really important. So if that's 30 % of people, we need to be looking at all of that. So we need to look at your CRP. We need to look at all of your inflammatory markers. We look at an entire panel.

So, and I'm just gonna give you a little disclaimer. I have a medical practice, Michigan only, where I'm doing this. Our coaching model is nationwide. We don't do testing in our coaching model, but we do work and collaborate with functional medicine and conventional medicine providers nationwide. So this is really my Michigan focus.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (20:24.448)
And I'm sure you probably do what I do in the scope of coaching, which is these are the labs that I measure. And these are what I ideally want to see in terms of results. And if you're falling outside of these ideal ranges, because we can't go with what the lab values say. Like I'll take thyroid, for instance, right? So with TSH,

Jessica Preston (20:32.421)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (20:50.917)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (20:53.184)
If you look at a national lab TSH thyroid stimulating hormone, that is the hormone that is made in your pituitary gland that travels down and to your thyroid and tells your thyroid gland, we need more thyroid hormone, right? So the range for normal TSH, if you're at a lab core or a quest or something like that is like,

0.5 to 4 or something or 4.5 or something like that. And we have to understand that that means that 95 % of the population falls within that range. That is in no way, shape or form ideal. We have to remember that as a...

society, and I only really know the statistics in the US. I don't know the international statistics, but in the US, less than 10 % of our population has ideal metabolic health. Less than 10%. So how can we say

our labs are normal when the scope of what we're assigning to normal is already abnormal. Right? Like I don't want to be amongst this group because this group is actually failing.

Jessica Preston (22:16.709)
Right, I know. And then they extended it.

Yeah.

Right? That's it. Well, and you can get an idea, especially TSH. it's just, you know, it's wonderful. So for us, TSH is close to one as possible. It's a simple way. It's close to one as possible. If I see you above two, I'm on it. I'm not, so I'm really, yeah. Yep, absolutely.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (22:32.686)
Yeah. Yep.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (22:41.186)
Yep, like on to you're looking for reasons. And while we're talking about inflammation, what we have to remember is that if your body is inflamed, if you are under the influence of cortisol more than 5 % of your day, right? If you have an exaggerated stress response, we are very primitive beings. Our body knows two states, safety and danger.

Jessica Preston (23:06.223)
in.

Jessica Preston (23:10.586)
rate.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (23:11.358)
If your body thinks that it's in danger, this is not the time to bring a child into the world. How will you protect said child in this dangerous time? Which sadly is so true. I mean, like, yeah.

Jessica Preston (23:16.559)
That's right.

Jessica Preston (23:21.615)
That's perfect. There's a perfect transition back to polyvagal theory. So basically polyvagal theory is this switch, you when are we going to be in safety and when are we not going to be in safety? And it's not quite the way that we used to think that it was, which is, you know, fight or flight, rest, digest and procreate. So it's instead of being like a lateral line, it's, you know, it's more of a, we have devolved from a safe space.

in ventral vagal, you know, to a dorsal vagal state of being first fight or flight and then below fight or flight is freeze. And you can see that you basically can descend into this space. And we've gotten more into a frozen space from, we don't, we won't get into it, but you know, societal conditioning and the way things are going in that space.

And what we actually have to do is we have to ascend through fight or flight in order to get to safety. So it's a real challenging space to go to. And we have to actually help people get there. And that's where coaching is so important because people can't necessarily do that on their own. It's very hard for somebody to pull themselves out of that fight or flight state to the point that we've developed to. And in that primitive brain space, as you say, like we are just triggered back into our

primitive way of being. And that is a reactivity. It's a reactive response and getting us more into that hypercortisolemia. Our cortisol is getting higher. So what do we need to do? And that stat of 5%, I'll be honest, I didn't know 5 % of the time only, that's our limit. What a hard thing to hear. Let me just say, it's hard for me to hear and I live a good life. Like I nurture my nervous system like nothing else. And to hear 5 %

Makes me feel almost defeated, right? But it's not, it's, it's baby steps, right?

Dr. Jenn Simmons (25:16.622)
Okay, well, don't feel defeated, but we have to understand where that comes from. We are modern beings living on a very old gene code. What were our threats? Our threats were saber-toothed tigers. So what happened if you came out of the cave in the morning and encountered said tiger, you were running like hell away from the tiger, and in a matter of seconds, right, not minutes,

Jessica Preston (25:30.287)
Right?

Dr. Jenn Simmons (25:46.326)
not hours, not days, not weeks, not months, seconds, you either got away from the tiger or you were dead. That is all the time we are meant to spend in sympathetic drive. Get away from the tiger or die. That's it.

Jessica Preston (25:54.969)
Right, that's it.

Jessica Preston (25:59.225)
That's, yeah, that's it. Yeah. No, that's it. I just didn't realize it was so small, 5%. And when you think of it like that primitive time, that makes sense 5 % this time, because now our sympathetic activation is you wake up in the morning, it's our, no, there's been no change. Yeah, it is.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (26:09.934)
5 %

Dr. Jenn Simmons (26:15.692)
Yeah. Well, our genes haven't changed. Our genes haven't changed. That's the thing. The world has changed, but our genes haven't. And this is why it is so important. And I will give a plug to like Asha Gupta with the Gupta program to Joe Dispenza to Emily Fletcher.

Jessica Preston (26:28.719)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica Preston (26:40.845)
Okay, okay, okay.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (26:44.694)
to Tamara Levitt, you have to find a way to manage that response. You have to find a way to manage that stress response. We need modern tools to deal with this modern world because otherwise it takes over and everything in your life is a saber-toothed tiger.

Jessica Preston (26:52.484)
You do.

Jessica Preston (27:01.389)
I throw in there.

Jessica Preston (27:05.711)
Yeah.

That's it. So I find that what we have to do at this point, because it's hard. People are so stuck in their cortisol cycle, in their sympathetic nervous system, they can't pull themselves out. We need that way. So I love the names that you listed. I'm to add Michael Singer on there. I think Untethered Soul is just so empowering, something that can give you some empowered space. I love the masculine, feminine, dynamic work. So I'm a big fan of John Wineland. That might be a little bit further in. And we do a lot of relationship work.

I think community and relationship, making sure that you have those close people to you that can help, that you feel safe saying, can you help me? Can you help me? Those are so important because we do need to find a way out and it is a struggle. So that is where I think that also finding people that work in the, not just the conscious space, because that's only 5 % of our thinking is our conscious space, but our subconscious unconscious space. So working with biofeedback, working with hypnotherapy, getting in past.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (27:42.894)
For sure. Absolutely.

Jessica Preston (28:06.691)
that brain that can't stop, the monkey mind, the part that can't stop going because we're so chronically unsympathetic. The other part I think people really need to realize is we're addicted to it. And let me tell you what I mean by that. When we're addicted to our sympathetic state, when we're in our sympathetic state, so if it seems, our body feels like it's relaxing at all, your brain is going to find a way to ramp it up again. So you actually have to break an addiction cycle.

because we're addicted to that sympathetic. We like homeostasis. Our bodies like to be completely normal. And that normal isn't normal these days. That normal is totally abnormal with sympathetic dysregulation. Our limbic system is completely haywire. Our autonomic nervous system is out of control. And so what we absolutely need at that point in time is to find a way to change it. Now, let me tell you what happens. A lot of the time when we do that with people and we have a change made,

especially when it comes to hypnotherapy or biofeedback. Let's take biofeedback for example, heart math. We use a lot of heart math. So breath work, having decent breath work, when we breathe a certain way, it actually automatically puts us into our parasympathetic. So we need to retrain ourselves to breathe. What happens so much of the time when we're training ourselves to breathe, retraining ourselves to breathe, is we feel like we're hyperventilating. We feel like we need to stop.

We need to just trash it. We need to throw it away. I need to do something else. I need to get back on my hamster wheel of sympathetic activation. So when we're going in that direction, we need a way to retrain. What we need to do when we're taking on something like our sympathetic nervous system is be aware that we're going to be uncomfortable. We're uncomfortable already. We're in our sympathetics, so we're already going to be uncomfortable.

It's going to take a while to change. So we do have, for our people, 15 minutes twice a day of biofeedback, and in 90 days, you're going to be okay. What happens is it's kind of subtle at the beginning. You just have to get yourself in that space where you're going to be regulating or re-regulating where you are, and you have to break the cycle of your addiction to your sympathetics because that's your normal. That feels good to you, and it's harming yourself.

Jessica Preston (30:25.143)
It's harming yourself. How many times do people think, I just wish I didn't have to think about this. I just wish my life was different. I wish I didn't have this negative, you know, people, do something negative, they get out of it and then they dive right back into something else that is negative because they're addicted to their sympathetics.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (30:40.686)
It doesn't even have to be something negative necessarily. Like I will give you the perfect example. When I wrote my book last year, it took me around eight.

Jessica Preston (30:44.929)
It doesn't. It doesn't.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (30:55.678)
months of really, really focusing. It was probably a year and a half from when I started to when I finished, but it took eight months of really, really focusing down, working every single night until midnight. Sorry, I know I shouldn't be doing that. I fully am aware. But what drove me is I got to get this done. I got to get this done. I got to get this done. I got to put this out there. I got to get it behind me. And

whether I was addicted to that sympathetic drive or whether it was the sympathetic drive that just allowed me to do that. And all I could think of the whole process was I just have to get this done so I can put it behind me and breathe, right? I can't breathe until this is done and out there. And what did I do the day after I finished that book and published it? I started my second book.

Jessica Preston (31:45.285)
picked up another project. That's exactly what we do. That's it. That's it. Well, so, and you know what? This is, and here's the thing that's like, you're providing a service. You know that you are, you're doing such good work for the world. And when you're writing your first book and it has those ideas behind it, you're like, ooh, I have more thoughts about what I want to put in paper, but it doesn't go with this theme. I want this theme. So it makes sense.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (31:50.23)
What is with me? What is wrong with me?

Jessica Preston (32:14.115)
And we just need to pay attention. It is good work. I think what we need to tell ourselves is there's never going to be an end of projects. So if we know that, never. And so I just started this business and we just got involved with a big collaboration. And I know that's going to take a bit of time and take us a different direction. And I don't know how I'm going to add those 20 or 30 hours to my week, but I'm going to do it. But I also know...

Dr. Jenn Simmons (32:23.49)
Never. Never.

Jessica Preston (32:43.917)
When that's done, because it's a 10 week intensive, when that's done, there will be another. So I'm not going to kill myself over it. We can't kill ourselves over it. We have to be reasonable, delegate where we can, understand that that deadline, it's never going to be done and behind us. We're just moving to the next. So as long as we're aware, it's a continuous set of what we're going to be doing.

And we just need to be very aware. now there are some things that we don't love. And I know you love that. Yes. Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (33:11.298)
Yeah. And we need to build a skill set. We need to build a skill set because if we're not taking care of our response, right, that's the thing. The stressors don't go anywhere. They're not going to change. They're certainly not going to change for me. I don't know, you know, maybe someone else can go from where they are professionally now to like a virtual

Island. I'm living in this place for the next 10 years because I have something huge that I'm building, right? So I know that there's no end in sight for me anytime soon. I may have periods of time where I don't have as much on my plate, but my plate is ever, ever, ever overflowing, right?

Jessica Preston (33:49.955)
Right, yeah.

Jessica Preston (34:02.234)
Yeah.

Jessica Preston (34:06.457)
Are you able to give yourself a time? Like I've just started taking some time off on the weekends. Like can you give yourself noon to four on Sunday where you don't let yourself do something? No? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (34:15.85)
Not, not now, not now, not now. I'm not saying not now, but not now. Unfortunately, not now. So I think that now more than ever, and I don't, I'm not so special. I think there are a lot of people in my position. It's the, you know, single mother that has to work two jobs to make ends meet. It's the, it's the, you know, person who's building a business and building a business, you know,

is totally, entrepreneurship is totally different than working a job. When you work a job, I don't care what job it is. I was a surgeon, but I was an employee. So yeah, I worked a lot of long hours, but when I was done, I was done. Right? When you're an entrepreneur, it's never done. It's never done. When the business is yours, it's never done. When you're building a business, it's never done. Like I love all these people who like,

Jessica Preston (35:05.977)
Right. Right.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (35:15.584)
I want to come work for you. I want to build this with you. I was like, no, you want a job. If you wanted to build this with me, you would build something, right? You want a job.

Jessica Preston (35:20.761)
That's it. I have the same. I have the same.

Yeah. Or if you really knew what building this was, you probably wouldn't necessarily want to because the level of mission, purpose, passion you have to have to build something like this, it's all encompassing. It's all consuming. You have to have people around you who love you.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (35:37.762)
Yeah, yeah, it is.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (35:44.056)
But you cannot sacrifice your own health in the process because otherwise no one's gonna do it. Right? Like if you don't take care of you, can't do it. So that's why when you talk about breath work, and I just wanna call out like James Nestor and his book, Breath, which is amazing. And people like Sachin Patel who lead, amazing.

Jessica Preston (35:47.619)
No.

Jessica Preston (35:51.865)
Well, you can see it all the time.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (36:12.556)
breathwork practices, you have to find your thing. You have to find the way that you are controlling the environment's impact on you. The same way that you don't drink out of plastic bottles, you can't suck in toxicity from the environment and let it have its effect on you. Like you have to be in charge. It's the reason why we don't get up and

on our cell phones first thing in morning, right? Because if you do that, you're on someone else's agenda and not yours. We all need to be on our own agenda and control what, we have to be in control of what we let the environment in do to us.

Jessica Preston (36:58.479)
Yeah, your audience is probably well aware. Those are dopamine hits and they're a false dopamine hit. They are a rise and a fall and they form also their own addiction pattern. I know I've said the word addiction a lot more loosely in our conversation than a true addiction addiction, but it really is a biochemical change that happens in our body and we need to honor those. But breath, just to go back to breath for a quick second, it is a way to, for...

for all humans to be able to get into that parasympathetic, even if it's momentary, even if it's just for short lived, feel it. And those people that if they feel anxious from it, just be aware, you need more of it, not less. You need more of it, not less. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (37:39.276)
Yeah, exactly. That's an amazing point. If it makes you anxious, you need more, not less.

Jessica Preston (37:45.453)
Yes, that's it. Not a quit. I can't do that. That one doesn't work for me. Let me find something else. No, it's actually let's find a way to get you in.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (37:50.574)
Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like I totally derailed you. So I want to come back to for the teenager with cycle irregularity, because I feel like this is where it starts, Teenager with cycle irregularity that goes to her OBGYN and that person gets put on birth control pills at, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. Like

Jessica Preston (38:02.053)
Yes. Yeah, it really is.

Jessica Preston (38:15.077)
rates.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (38:19.896)
What do you think of that? And what's wrong with that?

Jessica Preston (38:21.359)
Right, well, thank you for that. was my life for so much, so much of my career. So here's the, I just wanna be very clear. I want to take all of those teenagers and make them fertile. The problem is I'm not making teenagers fertile, but I can't not. So there's a lot of consent involved. I will get a standard, I don't go as in depth when it comes to labs, usually with teenagers as I do for fertility.

Depending on their presentation, if I do feel like I need to go with the inflammatory markers, I always also want your lights, LFTs, liver function, kidney function, your basic general labs if they haven't had them done, because a lot of teenagers have not had all of those labs done. I do want the more comprehensive thyroid because we get more information from that. Depending on their history, I might add in some other things. I don't always get CRP on teens, but I can.

I will also do, know, said rates, I'll get ANAs depending, because we're seeing so much more in the way of autoimmune condition in children, while children, teenagers. So I do want to catch that early if so, so that we can get on it. My daughter had an elevated ANA and she was I think around 12. She doesn't now. And thank goodness I ran it. Who would have run that? Nobody would have run that.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (39:35.798)
Yeah. And I'm glad you said that because that is something that is reversible if you address it. If you continue to do the same thing, it's the definition of insanity, continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome. But if you figure out why that ANA is positive, then you can reverse that.

Jessica Preston (39:41.125)
Yes, that's absolutely true. And now she's 18, right? That's it. Right.

Jessica Preston (40:02.147)
Yeah, and for her it was gut, it was anxiety, and those were our main components, where gut anxiety and some food intolerances. They are actually, yeah. Right. Yep, gut-brain connection. It's absolutely true.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (40:09.57)
which sometimes they are one and the same in that if you have an inflamed gut, it is going to cause anxiety because that is just relayed through the vagus nerve. And what we traditionally thought about in terms of vagus nerve messaging, because it's a cranial nerve, it's cranial nerve 10. So we typically thought that it was a message from the brain to the gut. But in fact,

it is probably way more of a message from the gut to the brain.

Jessica Preston (40:42.147)
Not to the brain. Yeah, and it's bi-directional. And so also our microbiome has a big component in that. And she was on antibiotics when she was little. My babies were born three pounds each, and she had some issues at that point in time. And at that point in time, even being in functional medicine and everything, I'm a scared mom who is basically deferring to my pediatrician saying, okay, what needs to be done? Just get it done. Just get it done, because you want to keep that baby safe.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (40:45.73)
Yes.

Jessica Preston (41:07.619)
No matter what, we too make mistakes in that space, but also was necessary. So there's just been so much cleanup after that. we're still, she still lives in this environment. And so there's still cleanup that's going to be, it's a constant, constant cleanup. Let's get back to that teenage picture. So yeah, so Ann, can be reversible. I don't get that on everyone, but if it looks like somebody and these kids usually, there are two pictures usually for these teenagers that come to see me. One is my periods are,

Dr. Jenn Simmons (41:07.8)
Yeah.

Of course.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (41:23.276)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Preston (41:37.285)
horrible heavy debilitating. There's nothing I can do about it. I can't get on top of it. Let's talk about them for a minute. Then we'll talk about the ones that have infrequent periods. So the ones that have the debilitating periods, they're very heavy flow. We don't know what to do. We're going to get our labs. We're going to get a good history. I may get an ultrasound. It's possible. I may not. So for them, the question is, do they go on birth control? Let's say they even do go on birth control.

a large number of them, birth control is not controlling their bleeding. The birth control pills, the IUDs that I'm not a huge IUD fan, I'm not a huge any of it fan, the NexBlonge, the little rod in your arm, all of these things can potentially help control your bleeding but may not. It's still giving us a signal that there's something abnormal going on. If labs are normal, no matter, I can't say a broad overall, I usually try to, I want a...

good idea where you are for your stress life. I want to know how you do in school. Now this sounds a little off, but another area that I work in is genetics like the cheek swab genetics, the PGX genetics. And so there are some SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms that are really also focused with estrogen metabolism, the COMT, C-O-M-T for example. There's another one that is, there are a couple that are not related to hormonal regulation at all, but they are very much related to cortisol.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (42:43.468)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (43:00.185)
So there's one called SLC6A4. It's one of my favorite genes. That gene in particular tells us about stress resilience. So if you have one of these SNPs, we presume that you have decreased stress resilience. And in study, has been demonstrated that you are more prone to hypercortisolemia, decreased stress resilience. OK, so hypercorti...

hypercorsalemia decreased stress resilience increased risk of PTSD. So when that's the case and we're seeing

Dr. Jenn Simmons (43:33.08)
So essentially it means that stress affects you more than most.

Jessica Preston (43:37.219)
Yes, exactly. So what I love, these teenagers are there, they're there with a parent usually, which is great. They usually come with mom, which is wonderful. It gives me an opportunity to say, did you ever find to the child in front of mom, did you ever find when you were younger that you would like...

All your siblings are around, but you'd lose it more than somebody else. You're the sensitive kid. You can't say anything around them. Yes, that's the way it is. You didn't get an ice cream. You were the last person to get your ice cream cone, so you lost your mind because you were the last one to get your ice cream cone. So what's really great is they say yes. Mom now says, wow, this isn't a kid that is just working the system. This is a kid that actually has a snip that says that they have decreased stress resilience. Stress impacts them in a harder way. Good to know.

What do we now do about it? Because what we can do is I can put you on some supplements for that. I could do that. And you can be on a supplement forever. I can put you on an adaptogen where we can help your cortisol regulate. I can put you on ashwagandha. The other thing I can do is I can teach you some regulation skills. So definitely breathing. Neurofeedback is helpful. Biofeedback is helpful.

start teaching these kids and their moms how to have conversation about how much is too much. So I had one example, I had a young woman, she was actually about 20, and we would have a conversation about how much is too much with your college friends. So she wanted to go away to a concert for a weekend, camping concerts, one of them, anyway. So she said, I don't know if I can do it. So we figured out who she was gonna be in a tent with. It was somebody that was supportive to her.

How much time can you spend with people? How much time do you then need to go be by yourself? And this sounds like it's a lot, but she wanted to go and didn't want to miss out. Really wanted to be there, really loves her friends, gave her a system, she came back, had a beautiful time. sometimes it's really about how much can you handle and understand it's not your fault. It's not your fault. This is who you are and it's okay. Also, when you know that and you have inputs that can cause more stress to you, saying, okay.

Jessica Preston (45:45.571)
Is this a normal stress response? Is this impacting me more than it should? And even if it does, give yourself the grace, because it's who you are. So it's OK if it impacts you that much. We just need to say that, OK, what are you going to do? Give you the tools to deal with it. So I think when we see some of these genes, there are about four different genes I look at, that if I could make a lab test, which I might someday.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (45:56.002)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (46:10.979)
Basically, I want to have a vaginal microbiome test. I want about four genes on it. I want blood tests and saliva. So I want all of the things in one report just condensed. I would love to have these genes because it can tell me, are you going to have a decreased stress resilience? If I know that as a teenager and I give you some of those skills, when you're a teenager, to be able to help modify how you're reacting, realize when we help your cortisol normalize your sex hormones, your healthy sex hormones,

will flourish in this instance. We're not talking about with detox and any other foods or gut imbalance, anything else that we might need to do. But this is number one, and I'll tell you why. I can fix your gut. I can fix so many things. And now if your brain, your nervous system, now says, I'm out of control, it's going to disrupt everything we've done. So I can

take out the bad, can put in the good, can balance your microbiome, I can have you eating the right foods, can make sure you're digesting appropriately, chewing right. But now all of a sudden, if I have you with a preponderance of sympathetic nervous system activation, what happens? Our blood flow goes away from our gut, our digestion shuts down, our stomach acid changes, we're not gonna have enough.

stomach acid, appropriate stomach acid concentration to be able to trigger the pancreas, to release digestive enzymes, to digest our food, to absorb our nutrients. We need the nutrients as building blocks to make our hormones. If we don't make sure that your nervous system, number one, every day is intact, it must be intact or all of the other work we're doing is for naught.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (47:52.876)
Yeah. And it's important to mention that this isn't just for the teenagers or the 20 year olds or the 30 year olds. It's for the 40 year olds and the 50 year olds and the 60 year olds because these are the same things that are important every step along the way. Right. Whether you're still menstruating or not, whether you've had breast cancer or not, this is all important.

Jessica Preston (48:10.977)
Absolutely.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (48:19.554)
Because in the same way that fertility is health, breast health is health. And it's all of these things. It's true for everyone. question, without question, without question, which we could get into that. But I first want to say,

Jessica Preston (48:24.559)
That's absolutely yes.

Jessica Preston (48:29.615)
And you're seeing that in yours. Younger and younger women are with breast cancer and they're 20s now. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (48:43.918)
I want to talk about what the problems are with birth control pills and I just want your weigh in on what you think is the birth control method for people. What is the healthiest birth control method for people?

Jessica Preston (49:00.165)
Okay, so back to our teenagers, we have our teenagers that are heavy bleeders. They don't do as well on birth control. We have our teenagers that don't bleed regularly. Either way, it's pretty much the same workup. And we can see, you know, is there usually the ones that bleed less regularly or more of our PCOS picture with abnormalities in labs? Our heavy bleeders usually have normal labs. I'm a generalization, but we'll call it 85%. So our

Dr. Jenn Simmons (49:24.248)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (49:24.845)
are people that aren't bleeding as much, our concern as providers is we want to make sure that you are releasing the lining from the uterus to maintain health because otherwise it can cause problems, not usually young, but including cancer or precancerous issues inside of the uterus. So those are more of our issues. Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (49:41.036)
Yeah, and people need to hear that. So we are meant to shed that lining every month. It is one of the ways that we detoxify. So if you are on a birth control method that prevents you from bleeding, I would really, really, really think about that.

Jessica Preston (49:51.044)
Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (50:00.748)
because you are retaining those toxins and we are not meant to. We are meant to get rid of them. It is, even though people don't think of their menstrual cycle as a blessing, it is a blessing. It's a way for you to rid your body of toxins. And one of the reasons, certainly not the only reason, but one of the reasons why we see a rise in breast cancer after menopause is because we lose that

Avenue of toxin of detoxification Right, so we're not getting rid of toxins in that way and you have to replace it

Jessica Preston (50:35.973)
Right, right.

Jessica Preston (50:41.093)
Yes, and the beautiful thing about a period is it is a signal on whether your body is healthy or not. So postmenopausally, if you go a year and a day without a period, you're now menopausal. If you have a period after that, it's abnormal. Isn't it beautiful that it's a beacon telling us that there's something abnormal going on? So then we can go figure out what is going on. It actually is a great signal for us.

So when we look at postmenopausal, and then we'll come back to our teenager, but when we're looking at that, there really is a reason. So when people then remove their uterus, we're removing the beacon that's gonna tell us so much about our bodies, because the hormonal imbalance is one aspect, and we didn't start with the hormonal imbalance. That is not where things start. That's where things end up. So we need that kind of information, and so we can go with it. So back to our teenager. I'm so, and you know, I have a teenage daughter, and so this is so...

Dr. Jenn Simmons (51:16.835)
Yeah.

Jessica Preston (51:33.699)
much in my head, she's 18. this is just, and I'm not practicing, I don't prescribe birth control pills or birth control at this point. I don't prescribe that. Personally, we have to think about the teenage pregnancy. We need to think about compliance and all of this as well. If I could count on compliance, I would say condoms for birth control is exactly where I would want you to go. Basically that's it. I know we are having a lot of latex sensitivities these days, but I would say condoms for birth control.

My next least worst would probably be, well, all progesterone only without any estrogen and Nexplanon, the one in your arm more than the uterus. The IUD issue I have is the never pregnant uterus is the size of a walnut and an IUD, even the Skyla, they're big enough that they can cause cramping and pain and they cause inflammation. When we're looking at inflammation, we're thinking of allostatic load. So how much inflammation piles on top of inflammation before something

goes askew before something breaks. And so I'd rather do the least of an issue. So really, if I have to, that's the one that I would prefer. Now, when it comes to if we didn't worry about sex, if we are just worrying about regulation of cycle, there are certain supplements that I recommend and lifestyle modification. And usually, we can take someone who hasn't had a cycle in 120 days and get you regular in about two months. So it's not, it's, we're actually like,

about six weeks. At about six weeks, we have you regular. And what's interesting, because we're a fertility program, so what's interesting is frequently we hear, I just had a 28 day cycle. Why am I on day 45 now? Why didn't it work? And we say, take a pregnancy test, and it's positive. So it can go pretty fast. would rather, disclaimer, have you wait three months before getting pregnant, because we want to optimize egg health too.

But we can regulate you. It's not very hard as long as people are willing to do the work. So I am talking about an ideal world. If you're willing to make some changes, if you're willing to, and it really is like giving yourself a bedtime. Nobody wants to do that. But if you are doing this for your health and longevity, there are ways once we get all of those aspects in place where we can give you an 80-20 rule and give you a little wiggle room, and it's not going to disrupt the apple cart. So that's really, I'm not a big fan of.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (53:53.88)
So what does the work look like? I'm curious and four people are curious because this same work, like if you don't do this work now, if you have fertility issues and you don't do this work now, you're gonna be forced to do the work later when you wind up in my office.

Jessica Preston (53:57.536)
yeah.

Jessica Preston (54:12.621)
Absolutely. And so I would like to also say we've just expanded beyond fertility because we reverse diabetes, hypertension, insomnia, depression, anxiety. So we have a menopause program that's rolling out a weightless and wellness and weight loss program, anxiety, depression, and metabolic syndrome. So those are rolling out right now too because it's happening. And we just need to change the terminology and the specifics of the little tweaks in between.

So we start, just I'll walk you through how this works for us. We start with nervous system regulation. I know that surprises you with this conversation. So we start with, we give everybody in advance, this is the nutrition plan you're going to be doing. And we have them take out in the very beginning, their caffeine, their sugar, alcohol. So we have them remove things that are challenging to remove before we have you change what you're putting in. We have you stop a few of those things while you're learning.

So we give you the information so you can read about it and start preparing yourself. And then we spend a good week or two simply on nervous system regulation. We get you into biofeedback so that you can start feeling calmer about it and give you the tools to be able to make change. So understand that. Think about when you're going to go to your college reunion or high school reunion and you're like, OK, I want to lose weight. I can either change how I eat or go to the gym. I can't do both. I don't have enough time. Well, we're asking you to change

all of these things. We want you to exercise a certain way. We want you to have a low stress life, eat a certain way, sleep a certain way, and have good relationships. So with all of that, you can't do it all at once without a good support. So we start with your nervous system, get you understanding it's okay. Everything takes time. It didn't take you two weeks to get into this situation. It's not gonna take you only two weeks to get out of this situation. So we start with nervous system, mindfulness, biofeedback, and we educate on how this is making change in your body.

so that you can actually see it and notice by how you're feeling. And we have people look at their own. We do questionnaires. We have them do their own questionnaires and follow themselves as well. So now, how do you feel in the morning when you wake up? Also, no phone in the morning. We do the same things I'm sure that you're doing. So we get you more in that space. Then we bring you into our nutrition. Because now you're like, OK, I can do it. And if I fall off the wagon, it's OK.

Jessica Preston (56:33.541)
We're going to get you back on. You know, it's just we all fall off. I still fall off the wagon. It was New Year's. It was Christmas. It was Hanukkah. I fell off and I celebrated all of them. So I was eating all the foods, you know, so within reason. So we'll get you back on the wagon. And then. It is. That's exactly it.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (56:49.782)
It's okay to fall off, right? It's not okay to stay off. One bad day, don't let that become one bad week, one bad month, one bad year. That's what you can't let happen. One bad day has to be one bad day.

Jessica Preston (57:01.167)
That's it. That's it.

Right. Well, and then what we need to do is not kick ourselves over it because that'll trigger our nervous system into sympathetic. yeah, we just can't. We can't do that. And we also have to realize that when we make a little change in every area, it snowball effects in a positive way. So we can also end up in sympathetic.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (57:21.358)
Mm-hmm, yes. And it's what we do most that matters. It's what we do most, right? And it is not the totality, and no one needs to be perfect. You cannot be perfect. It's impossible to be perfect. And if you strive for perfection, you're only going to meet failure.

Jessica Preston (57:26.519)
It is. It is.

Jessica Preston (57:36.015)
That's it.

Jessica Preston (57:40.377)
That's, well, that's it. And the thought of perfection, we have people who say, I went to a restaurant and I didn't know what kind of oil was in the dressing. I did the balsamic dressing, I had a salad. I didn't know what kind of oil, because they're about seed oils. And we're worried about seed oils. But we can't worry to the point where we're not going to enjoy going out with our family, and to the point where we think that one salad dressing that isn't perfectly clean is going to completely disrupt the thought of having a family someday.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (58:08.364)
That's correct.

Jessica Preston (58:08.377)
So we have to maintain that balance of, look, we've got to be okay with ourselves. And we get there pretty quickly. So it does work out. And people see gains. They see their mood change. They see their weight change. They see their periods change. All of it so much, so much.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (58:27.18)
Yeah. OK, so you're talking to them about nervous system regulation, biofeedback, mindfulness. They're following their questionnaires and doing self-evaluation. And they're seeing their wins when they're doing that. You're talking to them about exercise, about sleep, about having good relationships, and conversely, taking the trash out. Like, this is the time where you have to get rid of the relationships that are not working for you.

Jessica Preston (58:55.585)
It goes, yes. It's really impressive how well they do with that. Once you learn, so we teach a MAGO dialogue, nonviolent communication, Marshall Rosenberg's work. So we teach how to have communication. And since we're a couples program, you're there changing the way you eat with your partner. You're there giving each other a bedtime. And if you have a different bedtime,

Dr. Jenn Simmons (58:55.616)
And this is very important, right?

Jessica Preston (59:19.649)
One partner will tuck the other partner in so their relationship is strong. We're teaching them how to have these communication. We give scripts. We actually give you scripts to say, is how I'm feeling using I statements and how you can have those loving communications that we are a team, especially with infertility. There's a lot of whose fault is this that I can't have my baby. And whether that's a conscious thought or a subconscious thought, a lot of, especially we take care of a lot of very professional high achieving women.

Go figure, that's us, right? That's the whole, what do we do with our cortisol and our hormones, right? And so that's frequently what we see. And so we struggle sometimes with very vulnerable conversation with our husbands. And so we wanna make sure that we can help women find that vulnerability and help men receive the vulnerability when they're not used to it because we've been together for so long. So we have a team of eight coaches, three men, five women.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (59:51.49)
Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:00:17.049)
that's part of our team as well, as we have three men all trained in mankind project work. So they work with the men on sovereignty, masculinity, because infertility can be very emasculating, especially if there's a male factor, which is 40 % of infertility cases has a male factor, not ruling out female factor, but male factor alone. So we work with the men and then we work with the women in the feminine space. And we have a somatics coach who works in masculine and feminine dynamic. And we have

a good balance of connection. teach intro to tantra and eye gazing and helping people with connectivity because those relationships start with the two of you. Then you start having conversation about, you start becoming sensitive to those people that just don't feel right to you. Where before you just kind of tolerated them or you put up with it or you thought you needed to. Now you're owning your own sovereignty. Like, wow, I don't need to be surrounded by that.

Where else do I need to be? And it's much easier to take out the trash than you think once you're given these tools. It's really, I've watched that. You think that is the hardest piece, it's not. It seems to be such an easy disposal at that point in time.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:01:19.5)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:01:27.392)
Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure it's very freeing. So we've talked about so much today. We started off with giving the statistic that one in four to one in five people are dealing with infertility, 40 % of which has a male factor that has to do with sperm counts, but so much more. I would love to just talk a little bit about the so much more.

What are the things that are driving these infertility rates?

Jessica Preston (01:02:00.565)
So we have three categories for infertilities. We have structural issues, which is like a blockage in the tubes or a varicoseal in the testicles. So we have that population. And then we have other diagnoses. It's just a category of you have infertility because you have another chronic disease state. So that's basically the category. Diabetes, yes, exactly. And then there's the...

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:02:20.994)
like diabetes or something like that, like with thyroidism.

Jessica Preston (01:02:26.125)
Right, right. So if you have a diagnosis and you're not getting pregnant, you're in that bucket. And then there's structural. Structural is the one where we do, I mean, we work in turn in hand in hand with IVF clinics. Structural is a requirement that we would need to do that because egg and sperm structurally can't get together in the same space. So we definitely let our people know we will be working with someone. If you don't have someone, we'll find them for you. Then there's the largest bucket, which is about 55%, which is all other catch all of unknown. And basically those are

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:02:30.498)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:02:42.988)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:02:55.897)
the hormonal imbalances, those are the factors that are subclinical, those are the low testosterone leading to low sperm count. And these lifestyle factors really are factors that are the underlying why of why we are having infertility issues. And so when it comes to, let's touch briefly on male factor. Yes, it's usually low testosterone. We're seeing erectile dysfunction now for men in their 20s. Major thing that we need to look for

when you have erectile dysfunction is do you have a cardiac issue? You just need to rule that part out. But so much of it is hormonal and low testosterone, low T related. And you can get that in lab testing, yes, but history taking, depression, anxiety, what else is going on that needs to be taken care of. So a lot of mood disturbance underlying this allow a lot of malnourishment. We don't have the appropriate nutrients in our food that we can actually make appropriate.

amounts of energy ATP or amounts of hormones amounts of Pregnant alone for example, which is our precursor to hormones made on the intermitochondrial membrane That is on the decline it already declines when we're starting in our late 30s early 40s But we're seeing that number being very very low also. So I do check that one. I didn't put that in earlier earlier it is and that is a direct relationship to to stress as well

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:04:14.036)
And earlier, and earlier, in, yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:04:21.475)
So the food, we're not getting the right food. If we're not getting sleep, so men need to have eight hours of sleep per night to make, they're making their testosterone while they're sleeping. So they need to have the appropriate sleep at night and quality sleep in order to make their testosterone. So that's, and same with women for progesterone. So we need to have our good quality sleep for that. Environmentally, we're looking at the toxins. You had mentioned the plastic water bottles, you all of our, all of our Xenoestrogens, all of our,

our PFAS, our Teflon pans, the containers we eat out of them, anything, our cleaning products at home, the stuff we're putting on our body, our makeup. I look at my daughter and I just, there's only so much control you have over an 18 year old's daughter, but it's looking at the makeup on her face and saying, what are you using exactly?

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:04:53.912)
but anything with fragrance or perfume. Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:05:06.722)
Yeah, I know.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:05:13.068)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:05:14.039)
And hairspray and hair products and the fragrances are out. I don't really allow them here. And I have, 18 year old twins and also I have a boy with cologne and a girl with perfume. So we're just trying to balance what is acceptable here. And you can blame it on mom all day, you know, but it's really important.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:05:30.028)
Yeah. And I think antibiotics are also a factor.

Jessica Preston (01:05:34.671)
They're a huge factor. everybody's, there's a lot of, we think that when you go, when we go to the doctor, and I know your community is not necessarily this community, you need to get something for going. You go when you're sick, so you have to get something. I should get an antibiotic because I came in here and I'm sick and I have paid my copay, where our body is meant to naturally heal itself already. So if we can give something, but it's a natural thing instead, or.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:05:57.838)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica Preston (01:06:01.605)
some kind of a natural support or yes, I'll take you off work because you do need the rest to recover because we don't need to burn the candle of both ends. That I will happily do. yeah, antibiotics are, as I saw with my own daughter, it's a mess.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:06:12.27)
But let me just say like, allicin, which is garlic extract, saffron threads, these things go a long way towards helping your body to restore health.

Jessica Preston (01:06:24.122)
They do.

Jessica Preston (01:06:28.761)
Yeah, there's a big kick and it has been for years and I see it's resurfacing on oregano oil. I just want to warn people and caution people you can't take your oregano oil near your probiotics because it'll destroy the efficacy of your probiotics so at least two hours different.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:06:35.278)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:06:42.028)
Yeah, and also you have to be very careful with oregano oil because you can burn.

Jessica Preston (01:06:46.393)
You do. You do. have to be, it's so hard because we know all of this and you go on, people go online to find it they can cause so much more damage than even when it comes to infertility supplements. People go on supplements that inhibit their own ovulation and they don't realize it because they read somewhere it would help with their endometriosis. Yes, but it's going to inhibit ovulation. So there, need to be with a functional medicine provider or somebody who's knowledgeable in this space.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:06:55.712)
Yeah, yeah, it can be very caustic. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:07:04.376)
Yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:07:15.821)
So yes, so toxins, don't forget our toxic thoughts that disrupts our gut pattern as well. Definitely our probiotics, we want to be definitely on a probiotic and then have prebiotics in your foods. What did we miss? I I think we pretty much covered all of the aspects. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:07:36.098)
I mean, that's a pretty comprehensive list where we talked about, at least from the male factor, low T, cardiac issues, mood disturbance, malnourishment, which is a huge factor for everyone because our food is just, it's not what it was. And most people who think they're eating healthy are not actually getting what they need. And so many people confuse thin.

Jessica Preston (01:07:51.148)
everyone.

Jessica Preston (01:08:02.117)
Right.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:08:05.644)
was healthy and not the same thing.

Jessica Preston (01:08:06.957)
Yes, it is not. so, Thin, I was just having this conversation yesterday. We were watching a football game and we were talking about how some of these football players are really overweight and I'm so surprised how well they can still function. But we were talking about they still have muscle and they're still muscular in that. Now, I'm not loving the overweight.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:08:27.86)
Yeah, but they have a lot of dysfunction as soon as they stop playing.

Jessica Preston (01:08:31.961)
Well, that's absolutely because I've worked with the next NFL crowd too, so I completely understand. But our next part of our conversation was the skinny, the fat skinny out there, the people that are slender, but it's because they eat one meal a day and it's french fries and that's it. And they don't move and they just lie on the couch all day and scroll on their phone. And this is not health. This is not health. It's...

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:08:54.348)
Yeah, I love the people that tell me I can eat whatever I want and I don't gain weight. I'm like, yeah, that's not a good thing. It's not a good thing at all. Like you are not helping yourself and this is going to catch up with you. You may not become obese, but you're for sure going to have dysfunction.

Jessica Preston (01:09:03.098)
Right.

Yeah.

Jessica Preston (01:09:14.063)
Yeah, that's exactly right. And it is harder to get those people that don't see it physically to make change because they don't see it. Where people see it, if people say, have a little extra around my belly, it's easier to get them to make change. And they see change so fast, especially with the work we do. Because we're women. We don't want it around the middle. That's basically, we just don't want it around the middle. And that's the first place it goes from with the way that we change our food and the way we change our mindset.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:09:22.606)
Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:09:43.234)
Yeah, absolutely. So the people that should be thinking about this is if you don't have a cycle that runs 28 to 32 days, if you have light scant flow, it's just as bad as if you're having that heavy clotting and a little cramping is okay, but you really shouldn't be suffering through your periods. If you can't go to school, if you can't go to work, if you're if you're completely dysfunctional with your period, that is not

Jessica Preston (01:10:04.229)
Thanks

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:10:11.732)
normal. We ran through the list of labs. The only thing that I would have added to that is I just check a vitamin D on everyone. I think it is so, so, so important to know what your vitamin D level is. You did mention thyroid. Let's just stretch stress again.

Jessica Preston (01:10:21.006)
Hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:10:32.346)
that having euthyroid, a normal thyroid function is absolutely essential to fertility, but more importantly, to a healthy pregnancy. And we are absolutely positively seeing the connection between thyroid dysfunction and the later development of breast cancer. So you want to make sure that that is in line. We talked a little bit about birth control.

Jessica Preston (01:10:44.57)
Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:10:59.956)
Obviously, the ideal thing for birth control is to use condoms, to use a barrier method. That is the ideal thing. And in...

in a uterus that has never sustained a pregnancy, an IUD is not a great idea because that uterus is so small. And those IUDs, they are foreign bodies, right? So they are going to cause some foreign body reaction. And we don't want to do things that are going to complicate or compromise pregnancy at a later date.

Jessica Preston (01:11:20.761)
Right.

Jessica Preston (01:11:27.417)
Yes.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:11:37.93)
We talked about the major environmental factors that affect pregnancy. And then we did talk a little bit about SNPs and those genetic factors that you look at. But at the end of the day, it's about...

nervous system regulation, biofeedback, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, having good positive relationships and dialing in your nutrition so that your body is nourished so that it can create the energy that it needs to create and that it can potentially nourish a child because that actually is what fertility is all about.

Jessica Preston (01:12:25.957)
great.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:12:31.404)
This was an amazing conversation. I'm sure we could go on and on, but I'm also sure that people will want to know where they can find you, where can they find you.

Jessica Preston (01:12:41.413)
Thank you. All right. So our website if you want to learn about our programs is de novo so it's de novo D E and OVO Fertility comm if you wanted to reach out our email is hello at de novo fertility comm We are on all social media if you want to join if anybody wants to join our our free Facebook group It's de novo fertility community group

and just join us. There's conversation there. You can ask questions. It's open to anybody who would like to join. So we're there. on Instagram. We're on TikTok. We're everywhere. You can find us.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:13:16.288)
Amazing. Thank you so much for being here today, for doing what you do. I think your work is really important. I think that we need to be having these conversations about fertility because fertility is health. Breast health is health. And we need to create an awareness in our youth because that's where it should all start. And if we become aware in youth, in childhood, in youth,

then we can carry that health through and we don't have to become a part of the sick care system which has really taken over from most people. Again, that statistic that less than 10 % of Americans have metabolic health, we need to change that. And the way that we change that is to start early and educate and you are doing an amazing job of doing that. So thank you so much.

Jessica Preston (01:14:12.133)
Thank you so much. It was my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Jenn Simmons (01:14:15.892)
If you enjoyed this conversation, please like it, give us a comment, ask us good questions, share it with someone who needs to hear this, make sure that your daughters know, your sister knows, your mother knows, and we will be back next week, same time, same place. It's Dr. Jen. Bye for now.