Positive Mind, Positive Menopause: Your Menopause Mindset Is Your Secret Weapon
Clarissa Kristjansson – Holistic Menopause Coach
Let’s face it menopause can be rough with symptoms like hot flashes, anxiety, mood swings, low libido, and a foggy brain.
Can your attitude toward menopause affect your experience? This may surprise you. A study at King’s College London indicates that women with negative attitudes reported more symptoms.
However, adopting a mind over menopause and focusing on the positive can help you embrace challenges and navigate setbacks more confidently. And see menopause as a time of possibility, creation, and connection.
Ready to focus on a more positive menopause journey? Here are the five best ways to do that:
- Address the STRESS
A core contributor to increased symptoms is stress. In the body, your adrenal glands respond to stress but also produce the precursors for estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. This means that high stress can affect all these hormones. Fortunately, we all have an inborn mechanism to counterbalance stress known as the relaxation response where we can quieten the mind and body when needed.
- Change EXTERNAL messages
We don’t have to embrace the victim perspective society seems to push on us through fear-mongering and aging stereotypes. Menopause is not a disease but a natural life transition. Educate yourself on what to expect and where you can get support from reputable resources. Unfollow people who are negative or shaming.
- Ask for what you NEED
It can be difficult to discuss menopause at work or at home. Speaking out about the challenges you face, and finding support networks through family, friends, your workplace, and advocacy organizations can assist you throughout the menopause transition.
- GRATITUDE is your superpower
Gratitude is the acknowledgment of the positive things that come our way. It is a choice we make. We can choose to be grateful. In menopause, gratitude bestows many benefits like dissolving negativity and fear and evoking happiness that is powerfully healing. Daily reflect on three things you are grateful for and what has gone well for you that day.
Actively ENGAGE with positive groups of women
70% of menopausal women have no one to talk to about their experience! Loneliness is a fertile ground for negativity. Build a tribe of women whom you can openly share your menopausal experiences with and don’t forget to laugh. A good dose of HRT (humor replacement therapy) can put your hormonal bad days into perspective.
There is a myriad of positives like no more periods and fussing with tampons or pads. The end of PMS, menstrual headaches, uterine fibroids shrink, and eventually no risk of pregnancy. And a greater sense of confidence that we can handle whatever comes our way.
The menopause journey will create transformation and with change comes challenge. But you are powerful, you have everything you need within you to unfold gently and confidently into the next stage of your life. Most of all it’s a celebration of who you are, what you are becoming.