Managing Your Menopause

Managing Your Menopause  by Jo Pigott

I’m going to start with a few facts- these are figures from the UK- 

• It’s estimated that 90% of women experience period pain. *NOTE: Periods should NOT be painful.
• Its estimated 1 in 4 women are experiencing debilitating symptoms of perimenopause – and there are currently 13 million women suffering in UK alone!

Scary thought and I believe these figures are only set to increase sadly. BUT, there is a way to help!!

A little known fact for you-

BORNEO WOMEN ( the majority) do not suffer with menopause symptoms- their lifestyle is everything we know we should and shouldn’t do!!

• Unprocessed food
• Mostly vegetarian food- small amounts of meat /fish
• Regular Exercise/ Socialising together
• Meditation/Stress levels-
• It’s also a Dry Country so NO ALCOHOL!!

I am going to focus on a different one of these in each of my following articles.

STRESS!!!

Hands up – Who on a regular basis (once or more a day) finds stress levels on a scale of 1-10 are higher than 5???  Probably quite a few, I expect!!

I’m going to try and explain how the body reacts to stress!

Think back to cavemen times- big grizzly bear coming towards you- what do you do? RUN!!! How do we do that- Our bodies create 2 hormones – Adrenalin and Cortisol which ultimately pass around our bodies allowing them to react-

Heart beat faster to allow us to move quicker,

Lungs to open to allow more air in,

Muscles work harder to move,

Eyes open more to see

BUT in order to allow all these things to occur, the body needs to shut down the areas which aren’t required at that moment in time- and use the energy elsewhere!

So our digestive system- there’s no need to digest food which takes energy!

Immune system- no time to think about protecting the body cells when we’ve got to run like hell to escape!

Reproductive system- there’s absolutely no way our body is going to be able to produce a baby/regulate hormones or have a regular cycle.

To summarise, the 3 areas which don’t function under stress are

DIGESTION, IMMUNE SYSTEM AND REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM-

And finally, Stress management

It’s very easy to say reduce your stress but often stress is due to work, family life, health- things that you can’t change easily!!

Obviously coming to me for treatments is an amazing way of reducing stress levels! But there is also a lot you can do too!!

Meditation- the biggest thing I believe you can do!!!

13 minutes for 8 weeks has been proven to alter the brains physiology which ultimately changes how our bodies react to stress!!

So after meditation, that grizzly bear is still there- BUT your body will not react in the same way it previously did!

How to meditate? Baby steps to begin- 5 minutes every morning!!! And then again at night-time- will also help you sleep too!!!

Lots of Apps available- I personally use INSIGHT TIMER-
there’s stories, guided meditations as well as music and challenges too.
free and easy from your App Store

Love Jo

 

Jo Pigott has a background in Science holding a degree in Biomedical Science and was a Forensic Scientist for the Home office for over 10 years.

After having her children, she retrained in Holistic Therapies and have been learning ever since from sports massage, reflexology & reiki to aromatherapy & crystal healing and more recently trained a fertile women’s practitioner.

Visit Jo on her Facebook Page  https://www.facebook.com/Thefertilewomenspractitioner