Many people associate menopause with hot flushes that come and go everyone now and again and expect women to just endure it – no questions asked or need. It’s a natural part of the aging process after all, (or not as it can also be medically induced)! But it’s much more complex than that.
Women (including trans and non-binary people with female sex hormones) experiencing the stages of menopause are facing as big a reproductive transition as puberty and pregnancy, if not bigger. Menopause is a massive biological, neurological, endocrinological and psycho-social change representing about 1/3 of a woman’s lifespan over 10 reproductive aging stages.
Menopause is a deeply personal experience as well as a collective experience. With education, facts, community support and care, women need to know they are not alone. They also needed to know that menopause is not an end to life as they know it, but a once in a lifetime opportunity to reframe notions of aging, their value to society and future contributions as a healthy, strong, wise, wonderful postmenopausal person.
Menopause originates the brain (not the ovaries!). During this transition, the brain goes through significant changes – that result in common menopause symptoms – brain fog, disturbed sleep, mood changes and memory. Estrogen feeds the neurons to burn glucose to make energy. When estrogen declines in menopause, so does brain energy, structure, connectivity and plaque (that can cause dementia and Alzheimer’s in some). Post menopause, the brain adapts, and the body’s neuroendocrine operating system is entirely reset. But what you do and the attitudes towards the transition can have an even greater impact on longevity and well-being.
Yoga can be a tremendous salve for navigating the often-tumultuous path of the menopause transition that can take place between 7-10 years. Unfortunately, this massive transformation is not an area of expertise that yoga teachers are trained in today. Based on my own research, there are only a few Yoga Alliance Professionals specifically teaching yoga for the stages of menopause, and they are wonderful! When you consider that an entire third of the global population are somewhere in the menopause transition, it's an unfortunate shortcoming but a wonderful opportunity for teachers and studios to include menopause informed classes as the yoga world has seemingly done to embrace a more trauma informed approach.
There are so many ways a yoga teacher can support someone during the menopause, starting with:
Listening to students, offering space to feel seen,
Empowering people with helpful knowledge and science-based facts
Normalize and predict possible common symptoms and routes for relief
Support community building so women don’t feel so lonely, isolated and unique in their experience which can help someone with anxiety and over-whelm.
Offer local resources for further help & information
Provide caring and informed suggestions to seek professional help when it appears that symptoms are outside what constitute normal experiences
Teach adaptable yoga postures, breathing and meditations (that are safe and trauma informed), especially important when considering the accelerated pace of degeneration of muscles and bones during perimenopause and beyond.
Personally, the newfound focus for my yoga practice and teaching is a direct result of my own experiences of the menopause transition. I've learned that the field of women's health is in great need for funding, for research, for medical training and most importantly for better life outcomes, not to mention the socio-economic determinants of health in the United States today. Far too many women have suffered for too long at the hands of a medical establishment that is too slow to change and to consider that women aren't just small men. The lessons have been eye opening and humbling, maddening and powerful. I'm ready to take these lessons and empower others around me as the "menoposse" are doing. I'm excited to see more and more teachers join me.
If you are interested in pursuing CE credits as a yoga teacher, I highly recommend learning from these two gems (both of whom are my teachers):
"[Menopause] is a delicate dance between grief and acceptance, collapse and empowerment, desolation and creativity, regret and anticipation." - Niamh Daly - Yinstinct
"[Menopause] is a journey on which you travel to a new stage of life,...unveil your true nature and step into your post-menopause years with a new clarity and calm strength of acceptance." - Petra Coveney - Menopause Yoga
REFERENCES:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of STRAW+10: Addressing the Unfinished Agenda of Staging Reproductive Aging - PMC (nih.gov)
Menopause impacts human brain structure, connectivity, energy metabolism, and amyloid-beta deposition | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Time for a balanced conversation about menopause - The Lancet
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