Mindfulness & the menopause — Penny Metcalf Mindfulness

Mindfulness & the menopause

This month I wrote an article for Her Life Her Health a magazine for UK Healthcare Professions involved in sharing best practice for women’s health. It is available here https://pcwhf.co.uk/hlhh/

The bottom line is that mindfulness can make menopause, and the stresses that come in midlife, more manageable. Midlife brings not only the menopause but also the worry and upset of aging parents which often coincides with the worry and upset of children becoming teenagers. Midlife can bring promotion and increased responsibility, but also redundancy as well as the start of the inevitable deterioration in our health and that of our loved ones. Most people in midlife are already juggling too many conflicting responsibilities and priorities, and on top of that we can now add political instability and economic chaos, it is no wonder that many of us are suffering from stress, anxiety, depression and burnout.

Now more than ever, people are struggling to feel focussed and efficient. We know that the symptoms of perimenopause and the menopause exacerbate this stress by adding the mental and physical distress of brain fog, hot flushes, insomnia, etc. This lack of certainty and the fear of what might happen next is largely responsible for much of the increase in anxiety and stress. This is where mindfulness can help.

Mindfulness is about becoming more aware of what is going in your mind and being able to manage it better. This can help us to respond more calmly to stressful situations. The human mind is continually wandering. It has been wired to continually risk assess and check for danger. This was to ensure the survival of the species but now it is what is bringing us down.

As our mind tends to wander onto any risks so that we can prepare for them to keep us safe, we inadvertently add to our already stressful lives by focussing on what might go wrong, what is going wrong, or what has gone wrong in the past. Mindfulness teaches us the ability to spot this mind wandering and makes us more able to bring the focus back to the present.

When we are able to control the mind’s natural urge to wander onto the negative, we are more able to get things done and to stay calm. In the present moment we can remind ourselves, for example, that right here and now we are safe. This gives us some relief from the constant worrying about what might go wrong. The formal practice to develop this ability is meditation. In focussing on the breath with our eyes closed, we can notice where the mind tends to go and we can practice bringing it back to where we want it to be.

The next step is to apply this to real life. It can help to try to bring your mind into the present at any given time during the day, during a mundane daily activity. You could try mindful showering or teeth cleaning. It might sound funny but it is worth noticing what you are thinking about while you are in the shower. If you spot that you are worrying about something or churning something over, just try to focus on the here and now, and give yourself a break from the stress. Small stress breaks during the day will help to increase your wellbeing as you can stop the tendency for stress or anxiety to spiral.

With menopause as woth many aspects of midlife stress, we cannot control the situation but we can learn to control our reaction to it. We can learn to respond more calmly. We can learn to spot when our minds start to wander towards the issues that are causing us stress and we can learn to refocus them. In doing this we can learn to live more calmly and also to get more done.

Being more aware of where our attention lies, enables us to spot distraction and limit our natural tendency to time waste and procrastinate. This helps us to work more effectively and also to be able to turn off from work. This is how mindfulness helps us to live better, work better and sleep better.

Developing a more objective awareness of what we are experiencing, enables us to see how universal this experience is. Whether we are going through the acute physical discomfort of the menopause, or the ongoing stress of midlife, we can develop the ability to see this not just as our own difficulty, but as a shared experience. It can help to remind ourselves that anyone in this situation is likely to feel this way. It is not due to our own personal failing or inability to cope. This alone can release some of the pressure. Through mindfulness we can learn to be kinder to ourselves, to reduce self criticism and judgement. In doing this we can increase our awareness of what we need to look after ourselves. This could be meditation, time spent outdoors or with other people, or just an early night.

It only takes a few small changes to have a powerful effect. Mindfulness can help us to sleep better and feel better, not only to manage stress and anxiety but also to allow ourselves to rest, to recover, and to notice the happy times as well as the difficulties. You can start right now by taking a few moments to close your eyes and notice what you can feel. Notice the surface beneath you, what you can hear ,and feel, and the movement of your body as you breathe. Your attention will drift but you will learn to bring it back and in experiencing the process, you will experience the benefits that come from practising mindfulness.

Audio meditation available at:
https://www.pennymetcalf.com/resources

Bio
Penny Metcalf Mindfulness runs mindfulness sessions for individuals and in the workplace. Penny has worked with the RAF, Tesco Mobile, Akamai, Boult Wade Tennant, the NHS, various schools and many other businesses and running clubs. For more information: www.pennymetcalf.com

Case Study
This is the story of one woman who used mindfulness and HRT to overcome debilitating menopausal symtoms:

"As with many women, she had understated the extent of her problems. Over the weeks we got to know one another. I came to see how a strong woman had become utterly debilitated by perimenopause symptoms. A woman who had survived a difficult childhood and single handedly brought up two daughters who were both still living with her, now with a granddaughter too, had become unable to answer the phone, drive the car, or eventually to leave the house.".