My Ten Golden Rules
Today, I thought I would give you some golden rules, some tips and suggestions for things that you can do to look after yourself.
Rule No. 1 – Be kind to yourself
The most important one of all, I believe, is to be kind to yourself. You know, as women, we put the most extraordinary amount of pressure on ourselves. And when we’re going through the menopause, we may be fatigued, we may find we can’t do things as well. Our memory goes, our joints go. We can just feel really, really lousy.
And we then end up beating ourselves up, saying “Oh I can’t do this anymore”. And it’s amazing how many ladies contact me, and they’re angry with themselves, they’re fed up with themselves, and they just don’t know what to do. And this puts even more pressure on yourself. So you need to just look after yourself really well, give yourself time and just be kind to yourself.
It is actually quite interesting because there was a study done in Australia that looked at two different groups of women, and one group of women were those who looked after themselves, who were kind to themselves. And they actually found that the women who were in that group fared much better. They had less hot flushes, and they had less general menopause symptoms.
So, it can actually pay to be kind to yourself. I saw a lovely little quote on Facebook not long ago, and it said, “Love yourself as you would love your best friend”. And I thought that was absolutely great. This is what we should all be doing.
Rule No. 2 – Eat well
This is so, so important. Your nutritional needs go sky high during this time. There’s so much work and balancing going on in your body. It’s having to get used to less hormones and all sorts of other things going on, and you need to eat well in order to give your body all the nutrients it needs. There’s lots of information out there on good diet.
Just make sure that you eat well every day, and that you’re getting enough food as well. So many women are going on diets, and that is actually starving their bodies, and then they’re wondering why their symptoms are getting worse. So a good diet is very, very important.
Rule No. 3 – Rest and relaxation
It's important to make time for rest and relaxation. Again, our bodies are going through a tumultuous time. There are so many internal changes going on, the body is having to try and rebalance every day to cope without the hormones that it has been used to for many, many years.
That can cause fatigue, it can cause low mood, it can cause anxiety. And we know that as women today, we’re so busy all the time. We’re always running here, there and everywhere, at our jobs and looking after family. Very often we don’t actually take that little bit of time out for ourselves.
There’s been research done on this, which has shown that proper rest or relaxation every day can cut your hot flushes and other menopause symptoms by 30-40% in as little as a week, so it’s worth doing just for that by itself.
Rule No. 4 – Water, water, water
Remember to drink plenty of water. A number of women have got back to me, and all they have done is started to drink a little bit more water, and they find within a week or two that their symptoms have eased off.
So this is another one of the very, very important rule. And, remember, tea, coffee, fizzy drinks and fruit juices don’t count. It really does need to be plain water for you to get the best benefit out of it.
Rule No. 5 – Breathe
Remember to breathe well and deeply. Now, this is one of the recent blogs that I’ve done so, if you’re interested in knowing more about this, just click here. Breathing deeply can give you so much more benefit.
We know that it can help to reduce anxiety, and it can help to reduce panic attacks. Doing sessions of deep breathing everyday can actually reduce the hot flushes as well. If you don’t breathe particularly well, your lungs can actually start to get weaker at this particular time too. And with the falling oestrogen, that can affect the capacity of your lungs so exercising your lungs every day, as well as exercising the rest of your body, is a really good thing to remember.
Rule No. 6 – Keep active
Now, I know this can be really difficult, because many women end up getting very, very fatigued during the menopause, and it can be difficult just to get motivated, never mind do any kind of exercise. Even a ten-minute brisk walk a day will be enough to keep you going until your energy actually comes back.
Just watch that you don’t do too much exercise. I've had women who contact me saying they’re down at the gym five days a week for an hour or longer and then they’re wondering why they feel really, really tired, why they feel awful, and why they’re not losing weight.
If you exercise too much, that will put the body into panic mode, and it will actually slow your metabolism down. So in the menopause, sometimes just a little is actually better for you. And it’s a nice thought that, once you’re through the menopause and the body has rebalanced, very often your energy levels will come back with a vengeance, believe me.
Rule No. 7 – Support your liver
The liver plays a very important part in keeping you healthy. A sluggish liver will affect your digestion, it will affect your thinking, it will affect your hormonal balance.It will cause bloating, and it can cause constipation.
So, looking after your liver is one of these things. It’s simple to do, but can give you really great benefits. And I’ve got a lovely, gentle liver detox that you can follow.
Rule No. 8 – Get a good night's sleep
I know for all of you out there that this is probably one of the hardest things to get. Falling oestrogen will affect the way that you sleep, it can give you shorter sleep, it can give you a shallower sleep. If you’re getting flushes and sweats at night, they’re going to wake you up. If you’ve got a joint ache, sometimes it can be really hard to drop off to sleep.
But this is one that you really do need to focus on if you can, purely because you need that time for the body to rest properly and to re-energise itself. And we all know, even if we just get one night’s bad sleep, how grumpy we can get the next day. And if you’re getting ongoing bad sleep, then that will actually affect your menopause symptoms, and it can create more anxiety and stress as well. So this is an important one to try and fix in whatever way that you can.
Rule No. 9 – Remember this is a phase and will end
Remember that this is a phase, there is an end to this. And, for the majority of women, once you get through the menopause, life can be absolutely great, because everything will come back.
Your energy can come back, your focus can come back, and you can really have a great time afterwards, and you’re not bogged down by all the monthly hormones and all the kind of mood swings that you used to have. So it can be really great. But I know that whilst you’re in the midst of the menopause, it can seem very, very bleak, and it can feel as if it’s never going to end, but it does. It really does.
Rule No. 10 – Be proud
Please be proud of yourself! This is so important too, because you and your body are going through a really strange journey. It can be very, very difficult, it can be hard on you emotionally and physically and mentally, but you need to just remember that you are getting through it.
The Ten Golden Rules of Menopause
So I hope that you have taken heart with these golden rules.
And, just to make it a bit easier for you to remembe, we have a lovely little A4 poster that you can click on and download to stick it wherever you want to see it. Download now
Originally published 02/12/2016, updated 17/10/2019
