There’s no topic Michelle Obama won’t tackle on her new eponymous Spotify podcast.
In prior episodes, she’s touched upon everything from her experiences with racism and low-grade depression to learning to do her own nails and waxing during the pandemic. And in the latest episode, she gets candid about menopause, aging, and “What Your Mother Never Told You About Health” with her guest, friend and OB/GYN Dr. Sharon Malone.
During a conversation about whether or not women should take hormones during menopause, Obama revealed, “I, too, am a hormone taker, low risk on all the other fronts because I have a very healthy baseline, and, well, I was experiencing hormone shifts because of infertility, having to take shots and all that. I experienced the night sweats, even in my thirties, and when you think of the other symptoms that come along, just hot flashes! I mean, I had a few before I started taking hormones. I remember having one on Marine 1…I’m dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and, literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high. Then, everything started melting and I thought, ‘Well this is crazy, I can’t do this!’”
Of course, her unflappable husband had a very matter-of-fact approach to dealing with menopause, as Michelle explained, “Barack was surrounded by women in his cabinet, many going through menopause and he could see it. He could see it in somebody because sweat would start pouring, and he’s like, ‘Well, what’s going on’…He didn’t fall apart because he found out there were several women in his staff that were going through menopause. It was just sort of like, ‘Oh, well, turn the air conditioner on.’ Because there’s a lot of the functions of day-to-day life when you’re going through menopause that just don’t work. Wearing a suit! There’s a lot of stuff that women need to talk about so some of these cultural norms change.”
When Dr. Malone turned 60 she says she gave herself the gift of “say[ing] yes, to everything I want to say yes to, and no to everything I don’t.” Obama responds, “And let’s stop there so that the men that could be listening to this hear this because they start doing that when they’re 20. They adopt that philosophy much earlier in their lives. Men, it takes us until we’re 50 or 60 to feel free enough, physically and emotionally, to be able to say I’m going to think about what I want and say yes and no to the things that bring me joy or turn me off. It takes us a lifetime to get there.”
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