Menopause & Anti-Aging

Menopause: The Change = Choices of a Lifetime

At the turn of the century, women who experienced menopause knew that not only was ‘the end’ approaching…it was very near. What your mother, grandmother and great-grandmother learned about going through the life of a female, from previous generations of women, was that post-menopausal life offered most only depression, fatigue, forgetfulness, incontinence, senility and, finally, death.

In the same time period, American culture became increasingly youth centered. The idea is that everything that is exciting and of value is done by or happens to young people. So, what life a woman had left to live after menopause came to be seen as sexless, unproductive and dependent. One had only two choices: Become either a quiet little old lady or a crotchety little old lady. Menopause became associated not only with the fear of death, but the newly manufactured fear of not being young.

At the same time all this was going on, the American woman’s lifestyle and diet were changing. Automobiles meant less exercise, washers and dryers meant less exercise, vacuum cleaners meant less exercise. Canned and frozen foods meant more convenience but less nutrition. And, acceptance into the workplace meant more economic freedom but also more stress in addition to maintaining a home and child rearing.

The result of all this is generally less physically active, more poorly nourished and highly stressed women facing a turning point in their lives that they have been taught is not only difficult but the beginning of the end. Menopause, a natural part of a woman’s life like puberty and childbearing and rearing, came to be viewed with extreme negativity like a disease that needed to be ‘cured.’ Without getting into gender politics, it’s no surprise that menopause came to be widely viewed as a health problem…a hormone deficiency problem. The logical response is a pill to make it go away. Menopause? Estrogen!

Another view: In some cultures, menopause is celebrated. It is a joyous event. Just like adolescence is seen as a transition from being a child to becoming an adult, menopause is seen as a transition from the binding responsibilities childbearing and family care to the emergence of a completely evolved individual with a unique treasure of accumulated wisdom. Another way it’s been explained is that a pre-adolescent girl is a flower, a woman in her childbearing years is the fruit, and a post-menopausal woman is the seed…she contains the essence of all the preceding life-experiences which she can plant in upcoming generations.

And curiously enough, in many of these cultures, women experience far fewer and less severe symptoms of menopause. Asian women report far fewer hot flashes than western women do. In some castes in India, depression, dizziness, incontinence and other symptoms are almost unknown. Only 5% of Chinese women report menopausal symptoms. Mayan women in Mexico report no menopausal symptoms except irregular periods. In Africa, women in Botswana report no menopausal symptoms except increased sex drive. In Australia, 70% felt good natured and only 4% felt depressed.

The above is depiction of the mind-body-spirit condition of women in two different cultural perspectives…one menopause-negative, one menopause-positive. The question is how to get from one to the other.

A Holistic Approach to Menopause: Here in the United States in the 1990’s, the average life expectancy of a woman is 84 years. That means she has just about as many years of life ahead of her after menopause as she had before menopause. It also means that today’s adult American women have the opportunity to create a new image and experience of menopause, for themselves and for generations yet to come. American women can culturally transform menopause into the positive transition in life that women experience elsewhere. They can do it by making it a positive transition for themselves and by their example transform the old stereotypes. Since menopause is a mind-body-spirit transition, its character can be transformed positively by nurturing mind-body-spirit.

Women can nurture their minds by dissolving negative myths with information. For example: the myth that post-menopausal women are sexless. Fact: about 50% experience no change in sexual appetite and pleasure; over 30% experience an increase; and, less than 20% experience a decline in sexual appetite and pleasure.

Women can nurture their spirit through new activities. Women can replace the time spent caring for children with pursuing activities they have been interested in but never had time to explore. Or, rededicate themselves to their careers or to new careers. Or, pursue spiritual activities through the church, the community, or with developmental disciplines like meditation or yoga. As a counterpart to this spirit-enhancing activity, avoid spirit-draining experiences like exposing yourself to negative views and opinions of menopause and post-menopausal life.

Lastly, women can nurture their bodies in three ways: As a preparation or response to menopause through lifestyle changes such as physical fitness and nutrition. Just as a child needs good nutrition and exercise to grow into a healthy adult, a woman transitioning from her reproductive years to her self-productive years needs good nutrition and exercise.

As menopause progresses, women can nurture their bodies by adding natural therapies to the base of nutrition and fitness. Nutritional supplements, herbs, massage and relaxation techniques can do much to prevent or alleviate hot flashes and other menopausal discomforts.

Lastly, there is hormone replacement, synthetic or natural. A good idea is to have a salivary or serum hormone profile of your base levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone as soon as you first experience skipped periods or changes in menstrual flow. Then, as menopause continues, any hormone replacement therapy (again, synthetic or natural) can be carefully adjusted to your own natural levels and not administered on a one-dose-fits-all approach. Here at the Tides Of Life PMS & Menopause Center we advocate women trying natural approaches before accepting synthetic hormone replacement with proven health risks. We advocate women taking responsibility for their health and doing so by learning what contributes to and detracts from good health so they can make informed, intelligent decisions.

Perhaps the most important body-nurturing step of all is establishing a partnership between yourself, your physician, and your holistic care providers in your approach to menopause. This can keep you out of the trap of accepting menopause as a hormone deficiency disease.