The Luminescence Podcast with Schuyler Grant

Estrogen receptors are in nearly every organ in your body, so when estrogen drops, your whole body feels it. OB/GYN and menopause expert Dr. Mary Claire Haver explains what that means for your bones, muscle, heart, brain, and belly fat. Recorded live at the Luminescence event in Texas. Medical school taught her that menopause meant one year without a period and maybe some hot flashes. Then she ope...

Women lose up to 20% of their bone density during perimenopause, often silently, until a fracture makes it impossible to ignore. Dr. Vonda Wright, MD, an orthopedic sports surgeon and author of Unbreakable, explains the biology of bone loss, muscle loss, and menopause, and why women, the 51% who make most household and healthcare decisions, still receive only a sliver of research funding after age...

55% of women say they've felt gaslit by a doctor. 80% delay care rather than walk into an appointment where they know they won't be heard. In this Luminescence LA conversation, Dr. Mindy Pelz (Fast Like a Girl, The Menopause Reset) and Dr. Robin Berzin, founder and CEO of Parsley Health, talk about why the medical system is built for medicine, not health, and what it actually looks like to walk in...

Menopause is usually talked about in terms of hot flashes and mood swings. But beneath those symptoms are silent, system-wide changes and one of the most important ones happens in the heart. Cardiovascular disease doubles after menopause, and most women aren't told why, when it starts, or what they can do about it. The truth is, perimenopause can begin in your mid-thirties, and the decisions you m...

For decades, almost everything we knew about sexual desire and arousal was based on research done on men — and simply assumed to apply to women too. In this conversation, Dr. Cindy Meston, professor of clinical psychology and director of the Female Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, breaks down thirty years of research into how women's desire and arousal actua...

Two women, one shared reckoning: perimenopause and menopause arrived and rewrote everything they thought they knew about their bodies, their sex lives, and themselves. In this extended conversation, #1 New York Times bestselling author Gabby Bernstein and sexologist Emily Morse (host of Sex with Emily) open up about the messy, unglamorous entry into midlife hormonal change — rage, hot flashes, van...

In this episode, board-certified gynecologist and sexual health expert Dr. Somi Javaid — founder of HerMD, who raised $40 million after being told she had "less than a half percent chance" — breaks down exactly what's been missing from women's health care, and what's finally starting to change. She walks through the real gender gap in FDA drug approval (six months for Viagra, six years for the fir...

You came into this season navigating a transition. You're leaving with a different relationship to what's on the other side of it. This is the season finale of the Luminescence Podcast. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower close out by looking forward — to grandchildren, creative reinvention, travel, radical career pivots, and the profound privilege of becoming...

Somewhere in your mid-forties, you realize that the compromises you made in your thirties stop sitting right. The relationships that used to feel necessary start feeling optional. The drive to be everything to everyone, quietly or not so quietly, starts to dissolve. In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower t...

We're all coping with something. The question is whether what we're reaching for is actually helping, or just numbing us from the discomfort we're too busy to sit with. This is part two of the conversation on coping in midlife. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower dig into the deeper current running beneath perimenopause: the old traumas that float to the surfac...

Your favorite coping mechanisms — wine, edibles, even your go-to SSRI — might suddenly betray you in midlife. In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Sarah de la Torre, Elena Brower, and Dr. Somi Javaid to dig into why alcohol hits harder after 40, antidepressants become less reliable, and the things that used to take the edge off start creating new problems...

Why does perimenopause feel like you're losing your edge? This is part two of the conversation on your brain during hormonal transitions. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, Dr. Somi Javaid, and Elena Brower get into what's actually happening in your brain and nervous system as estrogen shifts — and what you can do to feel like yourself again, including one of the most underreported findings in...

You're capable. You're high-functioning. And then something shifts. You can't remember words, you're snapping at everyone, you're lying awake at 3am soaked in sweat, or you're so flattened by anhedonia that nothing feels worth doing. In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Sarah de la Torre, Dr. Somi Javaid, and Elena Brower to get personal and then scientifi...

Most women are handed lube and told the changes are normal. This episode goes considerably further than that. This is part two of the conversation on sexual health in midlife. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, and Dr. Sarah de la Torre go through the full toolkit for vaginal health, pelvic floor strength, and sexual function. From red light therapy and testosterone delivery methods to why most wome...

When estrogen starts to decline, the vagina is one of the first places you feel it, and one of the last things women talk about. In this episode, we're going there. In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid and Dr. Sarah de la Torre — two OB-GYNs who specialize in women's sexual health — plus Elena Brower, who brings the honest, personal perspective...

Women are medically dismissed every single day, and knowing that doesn't help you unless you know what to do about it. This is part two of the conversation on what's changing inside your body. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, and Dr. Sarah de la Torre break down the thyroid-hormone connection that conventional medicine consistently underestimates. Because brain fog, fatigue, hair changes, and weig...

Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the US, more than all cancers combined, and yet the cardiovascular changes happening during perimenopause are still widely misunderstood, undertested, and dismissed. In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid and Dr. Sarah de la Torre to get into what's actually happening to your heart as estrogen de...

Hormone therapy, GLP-1 medications, vitamin D, creatine, vibration plates, cold plunging, butter coffee. The list of things women in midlife are being told to try keeps growing. This is part three of the conversation on what's happening structurally in your body. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, and Dr. Sarah de la Torre get into what the science actually supports for metabolic health, muscle pres...

Think osteoporosis is an old woman's disease? Most women start losing critical bone mass in their thirties and forties, long before menopause, and most won't know it until a fracture happens. This is part two of the conversation on what's happening structurally in your body. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower get into the bone health conversation that should h...

Aches, pains, and that mysterious menopause pooch. Is it just aging, or is something else happening in your body? In this episode of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower to get into what's actually happening musculoskeletally during perimenopause and menopause — muscle loss, joint pain, shifting metabolism, and why the wor...

Perimenopause can arrive as sudden rage, body composition shifts, sleep disruption, brain fog, and emotional swings that don't match the circumstances. This is part two of the conversation on perimenopause. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower share personal stories alongside evidence-based lifestyle tools that move the needle whether or not you're on hormone th...

Most women don't recognize perimenopause until they're already deep in it, and their doctors often miss it too. In this episode, Schuyler Grant sits down with Dr. Somi Javaid, founder of HerMD and women's sexual health expert; Dr. Sarah de la Torre, OB-GYN and functional medicine physician; and Elena Brower, bestselling author and teacher, to talk about what's actually happening hormonally during...

Botox. Fillers. Lasers. Red light masks. Geranium oil and gua sha. If you've wondered about any of these — what they actually do, whether they're worth it, and what two menopause-focused OB-GYNs and a Zen teacher actually do themselves — this is that conversation. In part three of their conversation on the visible changes of midlife, Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elen...

You look in the mirror and something's different. Your skin, your hair. And nobody really warned you that this was coming, or that it was hormonal. This is part two of the conversation on the visible changes of midlife. Schuyler Grant, Dr. Somi Javaid, Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and Elena Brower get into the biology behind what's actually happening to skin and hair as estrogen, progesterone, and testo...

Nobody warned you that midlife would feel like this. Right as you're starting to see yourself more clearly, the world starts looking at you differently. In the Season 2 premiere of the Luminescence Podcast, Schuyler Grant sits down with OB-GYNs Dr. Somi Javaid and Dr. Sarah de la Torre, and writer and teacher Elena Brower, to open a conversation that's been a long time coming: what actually happen...