Episode 184: Do Mushrooms Really Have Health Benefits? With Bronwyn Carr

By Sarah Walton | July 11, 2023

Bronwyn Carr says if you'd have told her five years ago that she would be leaving her corporate career in law to launch a startup to manufacture mushroom products, she would have told you you're insane.

But after a brush with ovarian cancer led to a hysterectomy and struggle with perimenopausal symptoms, she poured all her research expertise into creating the company Mind & Mane.

Here she was at the peak of her career, and suddenly, she was living with brain fog. She's living with fatigue. She's feeling moody and emotional with symptoms she's never experienced in her whole life, and she refused to allow that to be normal.

Full disclosure: I, Sarah, have been taking the Mind & Mane supplements for over six months, and I've noticed a profound difference! (I'm stunned, I didn't expect this from mushrooms.)

Reishi and Lion’s Mane mushroom supplement startup

Bronwyn says it felt like she was losing herself and her personality to her symptoms. She tried everything possible to alleviate them except hormone replacement therapy because of her cancer scare. She knew she wanted to take something natural.

She spent months researching medicinal mushrooms and discovered hundreds of studies reporting Lion's Mane and Reishi mushrooms' antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anticancer, and neuroprotective properties.

Her next step was to buy all the mushroom products on the market and found while they helped a little, she wasn't feeling the results she expected after reading all the studies. She discovered three factors that needed to change to get the results she wanted:

Dosage: the trials were offering people 3000-5000 mgs daily whereas most products capped at 500,
Fruiting body: If the label didn’t indicate the product is a fruiting body, it meant the product is likely mycelium, the root of the mushroom, which can be diluted by filler products,
Extraction: Boiling the mushroom down and using extracts offered more nutrients than mushrooms that are dried and ground.

Bronwyn encourages people considering mushroom supplements to look at the labels. She says if you do not see a very clear and significant dosage, fruiting bodies, and extracts, then you are probably getting a suboptimal product.

Listen: Y our Body Is As Important As Your Business with Angelica Ventrice

Managing the jungle

Bringing the product to market was a humbling and gratifying experience, says Bronwyn. She has three takeaways for folks who find themselves juggling responsibilities.

The Fores: Take your to-do list, allocate reasonable timeframes for everything on there, and plug it into your calendar. Include items like sleep and exercise. Whatever doesn’t fit, accept that it won’t get done. Move to the fores. Delegate it, delay it, or dilute it. If you dilute it, you aren’t giving the task 100% of your energy – some things you can do on 50% or 80%.
Journalling: Ask what is the one thing you can do today that will make the day great. Even if the rest of the day goes wrong, having completed that one thing will mean you have something to feel good about.
Create Boundaries: Create your boundaries, communicate them clearly, and do not ask for permission.

Perimenopause is not secret

After six years, Bronwyn says she was finally able to feel like herself again and wants to impress upon listeners the importance of talking about perimenopause.

"If you are suffering the typical symptoms, and those are, you know, hot flashes, exhaustion, brain fog, memory loss, extreme mood swings, sleep disruption. For many women, it's anxiety and depression. If you are suffering these things, they can feel crippling. I want you to know it is not you," she says.

While Bronwyn found relief in supplements, she says many remedies and treatments are available to women – you do not need to live with the symptoms.

"Think about yourself as a role model … show [the women in your life] what it can be to be a middle-aged woman who is healthy and happy and focused and killing it in her career, and, you know, getting all the shit done, juggling all the balls and doing it with some joy."

Free gift for listeners

Each Mind & Mane order contains 30 servings, but Bronwyn will provide a complementary additional 15 servings with each order using the code "GAMEONGIRLFRIEND15"