It is easy to feel like you are broken when your peri-menopausal symptoms are out of control and your life is being wrecked by uncomfortable and embarrassing hot flashes and covers-on, covers-off night sweats.
If you gain weight around your middle and none of the strategies you used to drop pounds in the past are working for you, it feels like your metabolism is working against you and your midlife body hates you.
Symptoms such as hair loss, vaginal dryness and night time anxiety are just so personal and distressing, it is easy to feel like a victim and as if something has gone horribly wrong with your brain or body.
In reality, peri-menopause, the ten years leading up to menopause (defined as being one year without a period) is a natural period of hormonal change that your body is primed to manage.
Research tells us that our experience of menopause is influenced by how we think about this stage of life, our opinions and feelings about what is to come in the next chapter. If we have heard horror stories from our Mother or have a deep fear of aging then we are going to experience more and stronger symptoms than if we feel good about living a full and happy life and are comfortable with the thought of aging.
In truth, our body is talking to us all of the time and the language it uses is symptoms.
It helps when we know what these symptoms are telling us but unfortunately it is extremely hard to get this information in a conventional medical environment. Most doctors only have 1 day of their training allocated to the science of nutrition and 2.5 hours on the menopause. Your medical practitioner may not have the answers you need about what you are experiencing at midlife and will revert to the standard advice of “Eat less and Exercise more”. This is unhelpful for midlife women and can further imbalance hormones.
New research is telling us that a healthy microbiome helps us to metabolize estrogen and can be preventative of hot flashes and reduce our risk of breast cancer.
We now know from science that early and strong hot flashes are an indicator of poor cardiovascular health and are a predictor of a future heart incident.
We are learning from the dedication of female doctors such as Dr Lisa Mosconi, who want to expand the knowledge base of womens health, that the early indicators of dementia and Alzheimers disease in women come during menopause and we need to be eating to protect our brain health.
Medicine is a male dominated practice/industry and research is only now being initiated into many aspects of womens health, including menopause.
Our symptoms do not mean that our midlife bodies are broken but that our body is talking to us and telling us (some times in a very loud voice!) that we need to come home to ourselves at midlife and pay full attention to our health.
What is required from us at midlife when we hear these messages is not a band aid to cover them up, but a return to self-love and self-care and a health journey that sees us making changes to our nutrition and lifestyle, one baby step at a time. You need to be gentle and compassionate with yourself and at the same time form boundaries, delegate what exhausts you and start to fuel yourself right.
Menopause is a very unique female opportunity to return to our bodies, listen in and offer ourselves deep nourishment and self-care so that we cruise through this natural period of hormonal change with energy, flexibility and confidence to emerge in the best health of our lives at midlife.
Let’s get started!
Rewiring your Brain for Happiness
“Remember happiness does not depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.
- Dale Carnegie -
As we raise a glass and pass through another New Years Eve and into our second year in a global pandemic there has been a dramatic change in the way we talk about our mental health and happiness.
We used to be all about aiming high, hustling and pushing through and now we talk about the importance of rest, self-care and connection for our mental health.
Positive mental health has a huge impact on our physical health. Our heart health, body weight and sleep all improve when our mental health is optimal. There are repeated studies that demonstrate that a womans experience of her own menopause depends on her attitude towards this natural hormonal change with women who view peri-menopause as a negative process experiencing more and stronger negative symptoms in the process.
Yanikkerem E, Koltan SO, Tamay AG, Dikayak Ş. Relationship between women's attitude towards menopause and quality of life. Climacteric. 2012 Dec;15(6):552-62. doi: 10.3109/13697137.2011.637651. Epub 2012 Feb 15. PMID: 22335298.
The truth is that neurons that fire together wire together. This means that thought pathways that we travel along daily become our outlook on life and our worldview or as neuropsychologist Rick Hanson states “lasting mental states become lasting mental traits.”
The care and curation of our personal mental health needs to be a daily priority for all of us BUT especially for empowered midlife women who are family matriarchs, cross generational carers and mothers.
We can begin the journey of caring for our mental health with baby steps starting with only only minutes each day and building into.
Here is my three step starter plan for bringing more joy and calm to your life.
1. Turn off the news. News media is in the business of click bait and managing your reality. Human brains are wired to respond when they sense danger or threat and so news media gravitates towards violence and negative bias in it’s reporting. All of the good news stories go under the radar. Screening this constant low of negative information out of your life will bring you peace on a daily basis.
2. Begin a Gratitude Practice. Spend five minutes each evening thinking about your day and everything you are grateful for from the last 24 hours. When we make a practice of focussing our appreciation on the good stuff in our lives we wire in the pathways for more appreciation and gratefulness. A regular gratitude practice helps to relieve stress and eases pain. Taking five minutes each day to feel grateful improves your physical health over time and can positively change the brain function of people experiencing depression.
3. Get outside and walk in the fresh air. Taking time everyday to walk outside even for just 15 minutes reduces stress in the body especially of we can get near nature and greenery, even if we live in a city. Walking boosts circulation and promotes oxygen supply to the brain, it reduces stress in the body and has a positive impact on the microbiome of our gut. Repeatedly studies have shown us that our microbiome loves for us to take a walk during the day. We now know that the majority of the serotonin, our happy hormone is found in our gut and that the health of our microbiome directly impact our happiness and mental health. Getting up and walking your microbiome daily is a fabulous way to build happiness and health in your body.
Taking a few minutes each day in a consistent routine that supports mental wellbeing during a time in life when you experience significant hormonal change or during periods of hardship, keeps you grounded and free of anxiety. Mental self-care will support you to build an empowered matriarchal mindset that will help you to prioritize yourself at midlife and make positive choices for yourself.
Hibiscus Tea For Summer Hydration
One of the challenges of summer can be staying hydrated in a healthy way.
When we are fully hydrated our joints ache less, we are less likely to feel lethargic, get a headache or feel hungry. Our digestion is improved , our skin is more supple and our brain functions more efficiently with better cognitive function.
Numerous studies tell us that North Americans are chronically dehydrated with an estimated 75% of us needing to drink more liquid on a daily basis.
Survey of 3003 Americans, Nutrition Information Center, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (April 14, 1998).
Just like with foods and nutrition, there is a good better and best when it comes to hydration and as we passed through a ‘heat dome’ earlier this month, I turned to Iced Hibiscus Tea for hydration as one of the best options out there.
Many of us turn to fountain sodas and canned pops when the going gets hot and the challenge is to avoid drinking insulin spiking regular and diet soda. (Yep! Your read that right. Diet sodas also ‘trick’ the body into spiking our inflammatory hormone insulin when the taste of false sweetness hits the tongue.) When insulin is spiking regularly in the body, you are going to feel out of control symptoms of peri-menopause and will be pushing yourself towards insulin resistance; the first step on the path towards diabetes.
Mathur K, Agrawal RK, Nagpure S, Deshpande D. Effect of artificial sweeteners on insulin resistance among type-2 diabetes mellitus patients. J Family Med Prim Care. 2020;9(1):69-71. Published 2020 Jan 28. doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_329_19
Red hibiscus flowers are packed with anti-oxidants in the form of anthocyanins which give the flower its colour. These anti-oxidants help to mute the effects of free radicals in the body and it is free radicles that promote aging and fan the flames of inflammation.
Ajiboye TO, Salawu NA, Yakubu MT, Oladiji AT, Akanji MA, Okogun JI. Antioxidant and drug detoxification potentials of Hibiscus sabdariffa anthocyanin extract. Drug Chem Toxicol. 2011 Apr;34(2):109-15. doi: 10.3109/01480545.2010.536767. PMID: 21314460.
The hibiscus flower is a power house for lowering blood pressure due to its mild diuretic properties and studies show both diastolic and systolic pressure is reduced with the introduction of tea made from hibiscus into the daily diet. 75% of us may be dehydrated but 1/3rd of all folks in the USA are believed to have high blood pressure and hibiscus tea offers a safe and natural way to hydrate and tackle this cardiovascular health issue.
Serban C, Sahebkar A, Ursoniu S, Andrica F, Banach M. Effect of sour tea (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) on arterial hypertension: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Hypertens. 2015 Jun;33(6):1119-27. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0000000000000585. PMID: 25875025.
Of even more interest to the midlife woman is that fact that hibiscus flowers are rich in phytoestrogens. These are plant chemicals that gently mimic estrogen inside the body. As our ovaries are slowing down production of estrogen in order to get some well earned rest, gentle support from plants can help to reduce our symptoms of peri-menopause as we move into estrogen deficiency.
The food and nutrition that you eat daily can either support you or tear your health down and in peri-menopause we can make choices that support a reduction in uncomfortable symptoms in the body.
Saeed IA, Ali L, Jabeen A, Khasawneh M, Rizvi TA, Ashraf SS. Estrogenic activities of ten medicinal herbs from the Middle East. J Chromatogr Sci. 2013 Jan;51(1):33-9. doi: 10.1093/chromsci/bms101. Epub 2012 Jun 14. PMID: 22700791.
When I talk about the naturally occurring plant estrogens found in soy, hibiscus and raspberries, I invariably get asked about breast cancer. There has been some inaccurate press that states foods that contain phytoestrogens are dangerous as they increase our risk of breast cancer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Naturally occurring plant estrogens are recognized by the body and accepted into beta estrogen receptors in the breast which trigger the slowing of cell turnover. Hibiscus estrogens have been found to go further and cause the death of cancer cells found in the breast making hibiscus breast protective.
Nguyen C, Baskaran K, Pupulin A, et al. Hibiscus flower extract selectively induces apoptosis in breast cancer cells and positively interacts with common chemotherapeutics. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2019;19(1):98. Published 2019 May 6. doi:10.1186/s12906-019-2505-9
When we include micro doses of plant based estrogen into our diet, we calm uncomfortable hormonal symptoms at midlife and protect our breast and vaginal health and the health of our libido.
Fruity and delicious to taste, perhaps the best reason for sourcing hibiscus flowers or tea bags and keeping a jug of iced Hibiscus Tea in your refrigerator is the fact that you get to ditch sugar laden and chemical riddled diet sodas from your day and instead embrace one of natures pops of flavour. A simple switch that builds better health.
Ingredients
1/4 cup, 2 tbsp Red Hibiscus flowers or 1-2 Hibiscus tea bags
8 cups boiling water
Ice to taste
1 Lime juiced (optional)
Instructions
Pile the hibiscus flowers or tea bags into a tea pot and boil the water.
Steep the flowers for 5 minutes and either allow to cool or add ice until cool.
Serve refrigerated and add a squeeze of lime for more juicy sourness and a shot of electrolytes and vitamin C.