Many of the gorgeous women we care for at the practice, as they approach their 50s, already have in their minds’ an idea of what menopause is going to be like. The ‘typical’ menopausal woman they might become. She’s anxious and exhausted, mostly from a lack of sleep from waking each night in drenched bed sheets. She struggles to remember things over the day, even stringing her words together, all while being constantly overwhelmed by hot flushes. She’s well on her way to becoming incontinent and not looking for nor gaining any sexual pleasure. Her mood swings between laughter and tears and she can see that although her hair has started to thin her waist has started to thicken. She’s tired most of the time, her bones and joints ache, and she’s noticed her skin has started to dry out and sag.
But in reality this women rarely walks through our practice door! Sure she may have a few menopausal complaints but on the whole they don’t stop her from getting on with life. Instead, she might be a pilates instructor or running her own small business, holding a senior position in a company, she’s a special education teacher or busy looking after all fifteen of her grandchildren; she’s heading back to university to study something she’s always been interested in; she’s just taken a new lover or is training for her first half marathon! Whatever she’s doing, she’s usually busy, active and out there living a full life.
Being fifty something isn’t old – but for all sorts of reasons somehow, we’ve confused ageing and menopause. Many visualise the post menopausal woman as this eighty year old lady and not the spritely young fifty year old that walks through our door. For sure, menopause is a time of change, and making it a positive time of change is not down to luck. It’s about preparing with good nutrition and lifestyle habits and starting early in your forties! Yes forties! You’ve worked hard over your life and those years post menopause are for enjoying. So you want to feel great because you are going to spend a third of your life here. So, over the next few months, we will be giving some extra loving attention to those health issues that may be troubling women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and onwards. This is for all the proactive women out there who want to feel and function at their best, naturally, leading up to and post menopause.
Feel free to share our articles with your girlfriends. It’s not just a cliche, knowledge really is power, and you do have the power to make those years after fifty your best yet!
