How To Improve Your Menopause Symptoms With Meditation
Study after study is showing that practicing stress management reduces hot flashes and night sweats. In this blog we'll look at WHY this works and HOW to do meditation for menopause right.
Why does stress management help with menopause symptoms?
I heard Dr. Christiane Northrup (one of the women's health experts I most admire) say recently that meditation has been show to reduce hot flashes by 90%.
Really, why is meditation for menopause symptoms so effective?!
1. Your hormones are all interconnected.
Your hormones are like dominoes. When one is out of balance it throws all the others out of balance too.
2. Stress is a hormone
When you're feeling stressed, the stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine are released into your bloodstream.
3. A little stress is a good thing
Occasional stress revs up our system and keeps us sharp. But we need long periods of relaxation between bouts of stress to be healthy.
4. Too much stress or chronic stress upsets all our hormones
Remember the domino effect?? Well, when we have low or high grade stress going on too often, we have too many stress hormones in our blood too much of the time.
When this happens it eats away at our progesterone and throws our female hormones out of balance. (And if your blood sugar is also high, it reacts dramatically with these stress hormones causing additional negative effects.)
4. Since most women experience chronic stress, most women feel an improvement in their female hormones when they decrease their stress levels.
This is getting a little complicated - but what it means is:
- If you have high or chronic stress, practicing relaxation or meditation for menopause can significantly reduce the stress hormones in your blood and significantly improve progesterone levels and estrogen/progesterone balance
- Which means decreasing stress = less symptoms of hormonal imbalance, low progesterone, and estrogen dominance - like hot flashes, night sweats, PMS, irregular cycles, insomnia, mood swings brain fog, slow metabolism, low libido, vaginal dryness, and weight gain around the middle!
How to reduce your stress levels in just minutes a day with meditation for menopause
(Meditation for menopause that REALLY fits into your schedule)
Now that you know why you'll feel better if you reduce your stress levels, you just have to practice meditation or have a similar stress management practice you do every day to feel these benefits...
Yeah right! I know that sounds intimidating, but I want to show you how easy it can be:
Practicing stress management doesn't have to be fancy or time consuming, but you do want to do it regularly.
- The first big key to successfully managing stress is just to get started
- The second big key to successfully managing stress is to do it regularly
So I recommend getting started with something simple and quick - like two minutes per day of deep breathing - every day - a perfect meditation for menopause. Try to make your exhalation slightly longer than your inhalation.
If it's bedtime and you haven't done it yet, sit on the edge of your bed and breathe deeply for two minutes before lying down.
Another great way to practice stress management is with nature. Taking a moment to really focus on experiencing nature through as many of your senses as possible is one of the most efficient, most effective ways to quickly manage stress.
There's even something called "forest bathing," which is the Japanese practice of taking time to experience nature though your senses. They've been doing it for ages - because it works.
So I've included a few videos of nature for you to practice with.
Relaxation moments with nature...
Is this stress management important before and after menopause too?
Heck yes, and here's why:
Before menopause meditation can help decrease PMS and cramps and increase and extend fertility.
After menopause meditation becomes more important that ever because:
- After menopause your adrenal glands take over making a lot of the estrogen and progesterone (female hormones) you have left in your system
- Keeping these hormone levels as high as you can naturally will do wonders for keeping you healthy and strong
- Because your adrenal glands also make your stress hormones, and they can only make one type of hormone at a time, it's more important than even to spend lots of time NOT stressed. Because if the adrenal glands are making stress hormones all the time - they have no time to make those female hormones for you 🙂
What should I do now?
1. Watch the short videos higher up in this post.
These are one or two minute videos of nature at her best. Try to focus completely on what you're seeing. Let it soak in through your eyes. Imagine what it would smell like and sound like to be there.
And that's it. You just practiced stress management.
2. Look out for beautiful things in nature whenever you're outside. Then take a moment to really appreciate them while taking a deep breath.
Here are a couple of moments like that I captured recently. (And yes - spending time with and petting your animals can have the same effect.)
Using the right Chinese herbs can also facilitate your relaxation & stress management efforts!
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Communing with nature - even for 2 minutes - can reduce hot flashes & other hormonal symptoms. Find out how it works in this blog
The two keys to managing stress for relief from menopausal and hormonal symptoms. Get them in today's blog post
Watch one of my favorite short guided meditations for menopause and hormonal balance. It's free - CLICK HERE to watch now.