The Intuitive Body – Yoga for menopause

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What is menopause?

The myths, stigma and secrecy!

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The Intuitive Body – Yoga for menopause

 

Menopause is not mistake; it’s an evolutionary gift, so let’s remember that and embrace this privilege! Not many female creatures on this planet get the opportunity!

 

The average life expectancy of a woman is 81 years, and the average age at which a woman hits menopause is 51!! With that in mind we live 40% of our lives in post menopause, that’s a third of our life with a hormone deficiency.  Not to mention the chaotic  years of perimenopause which could be 8 years.

The narrative around menopause has been relatively negative to say the least from the puritan view of menopausal women being witches to the Victorian view that the “death of the womb” meant that now women could no longer release their toxins through menstruation they would manifest as heat, hysteria and craziness resulting in them being incarcerated. There were also stories about the womb jumping around the body. If you hadn’t realised already the word hysterectomy comes from hysteria. Menopause has also been described as a “living decay”.   Another pet hate of mine is the overused term “The Change”, a really negative and derogatory description of a woman, who actually hasn’t changed at all.  We are the same person before and after the menopause transition.  Things have improved slightly today, although up to very recently before the Davina effect and Dr Louise Newson becoming a household name in the UK at least,  post-menopausal women are still described as women of a certain age basically implying, we’re no longer attractive, sexual or capable and probably no use to society.

 

Even in Hollywood you see older men like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt playing opposite actresses half their age.  And here’s a shocking fact, those women from the Golden Girls series…..were 51 years old!!! We are , however, definitely starting to see a huge change in the roles of older women on the screen these days.

 

It is important to mention here that in some societies, particularly in the far East and Asia, menopause is referred to beautifully as Second Spring.  This could be because older women are more revered and construed as wiser and better or from Western point of view this is time to reinvent yourself as you relinquish the attributes of the societal norms which seemed to have followed in the first half of our lives….I’ll leave that up to you to ponder over.

 

The menopause is an actual process, but for some it might not be, as it could be surgically induced or from chemo. It is primarily a natural process that happens to all women, if we’re lucky to live that long. Most importantly, it is very individual and that is why solutions and management is so tricky. The actual menopause is just one day – a year and a day after your last period, then you’re in post menopause. The average age of the menopause is between 51 and 55 which hasn’t changed in the last 150 years but of course life expectancy most certainly has. In the Victorian age Menopause was still 51 but life expectancy was 54!! Lucky escape maybe?!! So, the impact of menopause is huge. There are quite significant economic consequences of women going through the menopause these days, not least because the gender pay gap which is significant in women in their 50s. A survey done by Louise Newson found that 90% of women said that their symptoms had had a negative impact on their work. Many women had had a disciplinary process because of their poor performance. 50% had time off and many had left their jobs completely. Only 7% on medical records listed menopause as the reason for the time off work. This is probably because of the stigma linked to it.

 

1 in 100 women will have an early menopause which is often gone undiagnosed. Although now with much more awareness and understanding this is changing.

 

I’m hoping this course will help you harness this life change as a time to look forward with curiosity and excitement not backwards to longing and nostalgia.  It is an opportunity for transition and empowerment and creativity, experiencing new things and embarking on new adventures. But to change society’s view we must individually change our attitude and catapult it into a force for positivity.  We need to work as hard on our mindset as we do on our physical capabilities.

 

As a yoga teacher and a runner, I’m here to reassure you that there are more women in their forties, fifties, sixties and beyond participating in endurance sports, like swimming, cycling, running, triathlons and many start when they hit forty.  It’s never too late to start any activity and in fact this is a bloody good time.  Time for you at last.  In the words of Martin Luther Kind FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST!!

 

One thing is for sure being active with help you weather the menopausal transition more than if you’re sedentary.  Movement is medicine and when you move and push your physical self out of its comfort zone you’ll instantly reap mental and physical rewards. There is proof of this every day when you wake up feeling like you’ve got a hangover and the thought of leaving your bed is not far from a living hell however, we do get up and move around and not too long after that we start to feel more human and world doesn’t seem so bad after all.  MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE and this is the most important message of this course.

 

Let’s do some yoga! Our first yoga class is a yoga nidra experience. Yoga nidra or yogic sleep is a deep relaxation. Your aim is to do absolutely nothing. You’ll need 30 mins where you won’t be disturbed in any way.  Click below and enjoy

 

Menopause wellbeing tracker

Basic menopause ebook for quick reading