Real Help for Post-Menopausal Blues and Blahs, Part Three

This article is the third in a four-part series where I encourage my fellow post-menopausal women to work their way through the difficulties that this season of life often brings. Click here to read the first part, as well as my disclaimer; click here to read the second part.

Let’s continue on with my fifth tip…

Tip #5: Move every day.

Fatigue and low moods have a way of turning a previously active person into a couch potato. I know I’m not the only woman in her fifties (even forties) who used to juggle several projects at one time, plus consistently engage in her hobbies, but many days now can barely motivate herself to do the dishes or sweep the floor. However, if you laze about in bed or on the sofa for days on end, the result will be deeper fatigue and more intense low moods. 

On the days you feel least like moving, you need to make yourself move.

Notice I say “move” and not “exercise.” You’re already having enough trouble enjoying life; you don’t need anyone adding to that trouble by suggesting that you go out and intentionally do something that feels like drudgery. Because that’s exactly what exercise is when you’re chronically fatigued.

Instead, get up and get moving for five to fifteen minutes, several times a day. Here are some ideas to try:

• Take a relaxed power walk. That is, stroll for three to four minutes, then power walk for a minute or two, then repeat a couple more times.
• Turn on your favorite music and dance. Move your body as much as it can be safely moved, given your fitness and flexibility levels.
• Do a bubble stretch. Stand in a space where you have plenty of empty space around you. Pretend that you are inside of a giant bubble. Reach, bend, stretch your arms and legs, in whatever combination possible, in an attempt to touch all sides of that bubble.
• Take a dance-exercise class with a friend. Because when you do it with a friend, it’s a lot more dance and a lot less exercise.
• Go swimming.
• Take a hike, if you’re in an area where that’s possible.
• Jump rope.
• Fire your maid and clean your house yourself. (Hint: it’s not work if you’re playing instrumental hip-hop and making up your own lyrics to it.)
• Rebound. (Not the dating kind, the mini-trampoline kind.)
• Bicycle. 

An important note regarding swimming and bicycling: both activities have a negative effect on bone mass, so if you engage in them, to prevent osteoporosis you also need to engage in activities that have your feet hitting the ground.

Those are a few basic movement ideas that most people can manage. Remember, it doesn’t take a lot of movement to lift your mood and boost your energy, just consistency. You might even lose a few pounds in the process.

Tip #6: Get outside.

If you choose a movement activity that gets you out in nature and the sun, so much the better. However, don’t limit your outside time to only the movement time. Even if you live in an apartment in a downtown surrounded by skyscrapers, getting direct exposure to the sunlight promotes both vitamin D and serotonin production. Vitamin D is essential for proper immune system function and bone strength, and serotonin is essential not only for emotional and mood balance, but also hormone production.

The more nature with which you can surround yourself, the better. A sidewalk lined with trees is better than blocks and blocks of sheer concrete and asphalt. A park is better than the tree-lined sidewalk. A park with a trail going around a body of water, surrounded on all sides with woods, is even better.

Whether you believe in a literal Garden of Eden, or simply cling to the fact that the original humans thrived outdoors for an unknown number of years, you can’t escape the truth that nature is in our genes. Only relatively recently in human history have people begun shutting themselves up inside for ninety percent and more of their waking hours, and it has taken a toll both physiologically and psychologically. I would hazard a guess that if it were possible and feasible, if people stuck in cubicles and on factory lines all day could do that same work outside, they would enjoy even the most mundane and boring jobs, and work-related stress and illness would become things of the past.

There’s a reason that taking a walk through a meadow or woods has a calming, grounding effect. There’s a reason we enjoy the sounds of birds and leaves rustling in the breeze, the sight of flowers and towering, green trees, the scent of clean air after a storm.

The reason? The outdoors is where we have spent most of our existence. Nature is a part of us. We are part of nature.

Try to get outside, weather permitting, for at least an hour every day. It will do wonders for your perspective on life, and miracles on your hormone-induced mood swings.

Tip #7: Pay attention to the sky.

When I was teaching elementary school, it didn’t take me long to realize that the coming of both the full moon and the new moon affected not only my mood, but the mood of many of my students. I noticed that the two worst days of the month were the days before each moon phase. Add in rain to those days, and I knew that I would hardly get any teaching done. Especially after lunch.

So it was with much surprise and skepticism that, sometime in the early 2010s, I got online to look up the effects of the full moon on humans and found article after article where scientists scoffed at the notion… even though for centuries medical professionals have observed more accidents happening during the full moon than at any other time of the month. Likely as not, back in the early 2000s scientists were also scoffing at the notion that the weather affected people’s brain chemistry, but I didn’t look that up at the time.

Fast forward to today, and you find the exact opposite. Scientists are only too happy to expound on the reason that the full and new moons cause both undesirable mental and physical symptoms… and with an authority that implies that the scientific community have believed it all along!

The short explanation is this: when the moon is full or new – including a few days before and after the exact date – its gravitational pull on Earth is at its strongest, actually causing the Earth to get a little squished. This “squishing” can cause internal swelling of various tissue in animals (I tend to experience it in my digestive tract) as well as upset brain chemistry balance.

I was in late perimenopause before I realized that my menstrual cycle was calibrated with the lunar cycle. And since hitting menopause, I’ve continued to experience some of the same symptoms on a monthly basis as I did when I was in my child-bearing years. It turns out that I hadn’t been bothered nearly as much by P.M.S. as I had by the moon phases!

Changes in the weather – the barometric pressure dropping, east wind, north wind – have similar effects on the human body, leading to physical discomfort, emotional instability, and/or fatigue. One article I found stated that the west wind can actually cause an increase in serotonin levels, to the extent that if your levels of the happy brain chemical are already optimal, you can end up feeling anything between irritability and rage. With serotonin, apparently, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

My point in all this is that if you suffer from mood swings and/or chronic anxiety or depression, start paying attention to the weather and the calendar. If you discover that you consistently experience negative symptoms when the weather changes or within a few days of a new or full moon, then you can plan your life around that sensitivity. For example, I try to plan long road trips in between the full and new moon so that my family and I don’t end up snapping at each other and arguing while on the road. I know I don’t have to worry about my husband’s short-term twice-a-month depression, because it occurs right before the full moon and the new moon.

 During the same time periods, I have to fight against mental downward spirals and work hard to keep from saying anything hurtful to my husband or son. I’ve learned, in addition, that when I feel like every bite of food I swallow is swelling up like a balloon inside my stomach, it’s almost always due to the moon or the weather and is therefore a temporary problem. The solution is to eat less on those days, or to spread out my eating even more than I already do. Knowing this keeps me from getting frustrated with my body and convincing myself there must be something wrong, or that I’ll never be able to enjoy eating again.

When you know that you’re sensitive to certain atmospheric changes, you can prepare yourself ahead of time. This will go far to reduce stress and enhance your general sense of well-being.

I hope this article has been helpful for you. If it has, be sure not to miss the last post in this series in order to catch my last three tips on making your post-menopausal years more comfortable and more fulfilling than they might otherwise be.