October is World Menopause Month with 18 October marking World Menopause Day. There are events throughout the month to raise awareness of menopause and to support options to improve menopause health and well-being for middle-age women and beyond.
What is menopause?
The reproductive cycle starts functioning at puberty and continuously functions during your fertile years. With aging it begins to slow down and prepares to stop. As menopause nears, your ovaries make less estrogen. Due to the decrease in estrogen, your menstrual cycle starts to change. Your period can become irregular and then ultimately stop.
Physical changes can also happen as your body adapts to different levels of hormones. The symptoms you experience during each stage of menopause are all part of your body’s adjustment to these changes.
There are three stages of menopause:
- Perimenopause
- Menopause
- Postmenopause
Let’s look at these stages one by one.
1. The period when women start to experience changes in their monthly cycles is called perimenopause. It usually begins between ages 45 and 55 and can last between 5 to 15 years.
2. Menopause is a stage in life when a woman stops having her period. It is defined as a point in time 12 months after a woman’s last menstruation. Menopause is a natural part of aging and marks the end of the reproductive years.
3. The time after menopause is called postmenopause and it will last until the end of a woman’s life. During this stage, menopausal symptoms may ease but can also continue for a decade or longer. As a result of a lower level of estrogen, there’s an increased risk of osteoporosis and heart disease.
During menopause, the production of estrogen and progesterone fluctuates, causing a great number of symptoms.
Symptoms include:
- Hot flashes
- Mood swings
- Tiredness
- Vaginal dryness
- Decreased sex drive
- Breast tenderness
- Worsening of premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
- Increased facial hair growth
- Joint pain
- Muscle aches
- Weight gain
- Bloating
- Incontinence
- Night sweats
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Disrupted sleep or insomnia
- Thinning hair
- Concentration lapse
- Memory lapse
- Racing heart
- Headaches
- Dry skin, dry eyes or dry mouth.
These symptoms can be a sign of increased fluctuations in hormone levels, especially decreasing amount of estrogen production in the ovaries. Not everyone gets all of these symptoms, and the intensity of them can vary.
What can you do for menopausal health?
Doctors usually prescribe hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to boosts hormone levels. While it can be an effective method for relieving some symptoms of menopause, it is unnatural to add hormones to our body and the medication can have side effects.
Non-hormonal treatments are a better solution whereby you introduce changes to your lifestyle:
1. Diet
Changing your diet such as limiting the intake of caffeine and spicy foods. You can also add estrogen-rich foods into your diet:
- Soybeans
- Tofu
- Chickpeas
- Lentils
- Barley
- Flaxseed
- Sesame seeds
- Nuts: pistachios, peanuts, and walnuts
- Grains
- Beans
- Berries
- Dried apricots
- Fresh fruit
- Carrots
- Cruciferous vegetables
Read more about Foods High in Phytoestrogens.
2. Keep hot flashes away
Avoiding triggers to hot flashes can be simple changes in your everyday life. Start with quitting smoking and try to loose weight if you are overweight. Always keep your bedroom cool at night and wear layers of clothing during the day that can be easily removed when hot flashes come.
3. Support groups
Joining support groups provides the opportunity to talk to other women who are also going through menopause. This can be a great emotional and mental help for many. Also you can learn tips for menopausal symptoms and get answers to your questions.
4. Exercise
Exercising can help relieve several symptoms of menopause. It can improve your quality of sleep, can help with your mood and relieve any fears or anxiety. Aviva Method is highly recommended to women going through menopause as it can make the physical and hormonal changes less taxing. The exercises of the Simple Method and the Ovulation Sequence are both beneficial and bring huge relief.
Staying healthy and looking after yourself are the most important to ease the menopause transition.