As always, I will be looking at everything from a mind, body, and spirited perspective.
We will start with your lifestyle, diet, and exercise:
Exercises that are Non-weight bearing exercises like swimming or cycling would help.
Doing weights is essential for your bone health and for your joints. Walking, Nia Dance or other dance forms and team ball sport would be good for you too.
Yoga, Pilates, and Nia Dance again are Resistance, non-impact exercises that help you to build your core strength whilst giving stability and balance to your joints. These movement forms will also help you to reduce stress levels, which is super important. If you are stressed, your cortisol levels are high, which in turn causes inflammation in your body and causes pain in your joints. When you move gently and enjoy yourself, you release endorphins that make you healthy and happy.
Making sure your body is in the normal range helps your joint too. Obesity contributes to a large percentage of joint pains.
Breathing exercises and relaxation is also a good way to destress and help your mind, body, and spirit.
How about a fortnightly massage if you are able to afford this?
Alkalise your body with alkaline foods and cut out the acid-forming foodsOne example of alkaline foods are leafy greens and you should do well to eliminate acidic foods like sugar, meat, coffee.Vitamin D, Calcium, Magnesium, and Selenium levels should be at the optimal level too.
Here are three supplements that can help your joints:
Glucosamine
Chondroitin,
Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM)
Mood Swings and Depression
Women approaching or in menopause are subject to mood swings and increased irritability. Typically, this occurs as a result of radical hormone fluctuations.
Some menopausal women also suffer from depression, and the reasons for this are not completely clear, but it is believed that the lack of oestrogen affects the amount of brain neurotransmitters responsible for prevention of depression. When the neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine are decreased, the risk of depression increases.
Some women have more anxiety than depression in menopause...
There are numerous natural remedies for mood swings. Some of them include the following:
Make sure you eat a diet with healthy foods in it. Avoid processed foods and foods containing things like sugar, salt, and high fructose corn syrup.
Eat smaller portions. If you get food cravings, try eating a small snack instead of loading up on unhealthy foods.
Take in at least five portions of vegetables per day and at least 2 servings of fruit per day. Eat foods that are high in colour as these contain healthful phytonutrients that can improve your mood and cognitive function.
Eat organic foods whenever they are available. Try to avoid foods that may contain hormones, pesticides, herbicides, and food preservatives.
When eating fruits, stick to the whole fruits instead of the juice of the fruit. Whole fruits contain fibre, which is good for your bowels.
Decrease your intake of caffeine. This means taking less caffeine-containing drinks and also reduce black tea and coffee.
Instead of black tea, switch to healthier green tea or purified water to avoid caffeine intake.
Eat as many berries as you can. They contain healthful antioxidants, which scavenge for oxygen free radicals and can improve the way your brain works.
Eat olive oil and stay away from saturated fats (found in meats and dairy products) and trans fats, found in processed foods.
Eat foods that are high in vitamin C, including citrus fruits, red peppers, and spinach. These contain antioxidants that can decrease the dryness of your skin and can cause wrinkling.
Increase the amount of omega 3 fatty acids in your diet. You can find omega 3 fatty acids by eating higher amounts of flaxseed oil, walnuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds, alga, and perilla oil.
Eat foods high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory capabilities. You can increase the anti-inflammatory effect by adding turmeric, cayenne pepper, garlic, and rosemary to the foods you eat.
Get more exercise. You can do this by increasing the amount of walking you do, by cycling, swimming, or engaging in any exercise that gets your heart rate going and increases your respiratory rate.
Stop smoking. Women who smoke often have worse menopausal symptoms when compared to women who do not smoke and will get their menopausal symptoms 2 years earlier than those who don’t smoke.
Avoid perfumes as these can disrupt the balance of chemicals in your body.
Engage in stress-relieving activities. This can mean enjoying a hobby or taking the time to read a book.
De-clutter your life, so you have fewer things to be stressed out over.
Try meditation, massage therapy, Nia technique, qi gong, yoga, or tai chi to reduce the perception of stress in your life.
Try herbal therapy. A practitioner in Traditional Chinese Medicine is trained in the herbs that can reduce menopausal symptoms and can guide you to the right herbs to take, such as black cohosh.
Support your adrenal glands by taking vitamins that support the glands. Your adrenal glands also make some reproductive hormones so, if they are supported, you will have fewer symptoms of hot flashes, and night sweats.
Fatigue
Menopause is a time when many women feel run down and fatigued. Part of the problem is the increased perception of stress, and another part is the decrease in restful sleep that comes with menopause. It’s not only menopause but also the other changes in our lives, the kids might have moved out or a moving out, and we are questioning our next steps in life. No wonder we feel fatigued.
Stress reduction techniques can reduce the fatigue seen in menopause. Exercises like guided imagery, meditation, nia, qi gong, and tai chi can also reduce stress, so you have more energy as well as increased mental clarity.
Itchy Skin
Some women experience extreme itchy skin during menopause that drives them nearly insane. Itchy skin during menopause is often the result of the drop in oestrogen. As the level of oestrogen in your body falls, so does the amount of collagen and skin-moistening oils produced. Therefore your skin ends up being dry and irritated. This can happen all over your body. This gets even worse when you are stressed because the stress triggers the release of histamine, which then can cause your skin to flush and itch.
If you’re dehydrated or take caffeinated drinks, your uric acid rises which makes the itching even worse.
Things that help
Keeping your skin moisturised with natural organic moisturiser containing coconut oil, sesame oil, etc
Fatigue can be managed by having better sleep habits too. Check out Chapter 8 and read all about