Menopause and the challenges

Have you begun waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat? Are you seeing the scale creep upwards despite your best efforts to eat sensibly and to exercise? Are you feeling a little more tired or irritable than you used to? Ladies, these are all normal physiological responses to the start of menopause. And we all fight the same challenges when we begin to enter this new and exciting time of our lives.

While it may be a frustrating time for us, we can also learn new and interesting things about our bodies and our health. Exercise is touted for so many beneficial reasons, and rightfully so!!!! Exercise CAN improve our mood and our outlook. The physiological release of those “feel good” chemicals and hormones is not just a myth. Exercise does release the endorphins and happy feelings are a result of those endorphins.

The process of working out to the point that we break a sweat is another added benefit. This provides our bodies a way to rid toxic materials and to help our skin “glow.” We are in a very unique time right now in our country’s history, but we can make this time useful, beneficial, and productive. We can try new things, learn new skills, we can get to know ourselves better than we ever thought possible. We can forge stronger bonds with loved ones and we can truly come through this stronger, healthier, happier, and better than we were before.

Gardening is a wonderful way to practice calm and meditative reflection. Meditation is simply the process of learning how to quiet the mind. Our focus and attention on carefully planting and nurturing something delicate and beautiful helps us remember the cycle of life. Plants follow a traditional life cycle, but we primarily focus on the beauty and the joy we experienced when planting those flowers. Maybe nature has a valuable lesson for us there.

As we slowly begin to prepare to venture out of our homes, out of our bubbles of safety, let us remember our strength and resilience. Let us set up notes or reminders of how far we have come. Let us write our feelings, our fears, and our discoveries in our journals. Let us remember that journaling is our journey through life, through joy, through pain, and down the road to a better us.