Perimenopause, Menopause And Emotional Well-Being

Why do so many women experience mental health challenges in midlife? As we journey through perimenopause and menopause, can our hormones turn crazy and take us away from innate well-being?

Let’s explore what’s actually going on during midlife change, and how women can be supported at this time.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Tania Alfersi and I'd love to help you have a smoother journey through midlife change.

Let's look at perimenopause,

Menopause and mental health.

Many women experience a level of emotional turmoil during perimenopause and menopause.

Some find themselves facing intense mental health challenges for the first time.

The dominant narrative around midlife change suggests that increased rates of depression,

Anxiety,

Panic attacks and more are caused by changes in a woman's hormones.

Yet through my work with women in perimenopause and menopause,

I've witnessed women's mental health challenges fall away without them needing to fix their hormones or another supposed chemical imbalance.

I know the dominant narrative is untrue.

Deep and lasting inner peace of mind is reached through understanding the human experience.

No pharmaceutical product can deliver that understanding.

If mental health challenges in midlife change were caused by hormones,

We would see a correlation between levels of hormones and mental health.

But there is no such correlation.

Women can have the same fluctuations in hormones but experience very different levels of well-being.

The hormones are not the variable we should be measuring.

Instead,

We should focus on our state of mind and our awareness of our innate mental health.

While hormone levels do not determine our mental health,

Hormone fluctuations do create a sensitive time.

Women journey through sensitive times during adolescence,

Pregnancy,

Postpartum and during midlife change.

If our lives are out of balance at these times,

We can quickly experience intense feelings and symptoms.

Feelings and symptoms are the only way that the body can alert us and wake us up to changes that we need to make in our emotional and physical lives.

Perhaps we need to examine stress,

Diet,

Movement,

Slowing down,

Sleep,

Exposure to sunlight and other lifestyle factors.

If we carry perceived trauma through perimenopause and menopause,

If we live with a misunderstanding of how we can innocently create stress and let it snowball into chronic distress,

Then we may well experience a drop in our sense of well-being.

Some women claim that taking HRT has helped them feel more emotionally stable.

Since no studies have succeeded to confirm a causal relationship between hormone levels and mental health,

We can assume that since HRT sometimes helps reduce night sweats and hot flushes,

Which can interfere with a woman's sleep and day-to-day activity,

Perhaps better sleep and reduced stress from fewer night sweats and hot flushes are causing some women to feel better in general.

It's dangerous,

However,

To make false claims about hormones,

Mental health and HRT.

Such claims wrongly forecast by logically determined doom and gloom for women who are in perimenopause and menopause.

The majority of women don't go on HRT.

There are women who choose to journey through perimenopause and menopause naturally.

There are also women who can't take HRT because of the side effects or because of their personal or family medical history.

When claims are made in the media that the occurrence of mental instability is due to hormonal changes,

It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oh,

I must be depressed because of my crazy hormones,

And if I can't take HRT,

There's no way out.

Can you see how that can lead to disaster?

So how have so many become convinced that it's our hormones that create mental health challenges?

Is the female body innately designed to throw us into ill health?

The womb was once considered to have the ability to wander,

Just like a living thing inside a living thing.

According to some ancient Greek writers,

Whose influence continued over centuries,

Just like an animal with a mind of its own,

The womb could supposedly travel through your body,

Interfering with organs,

And cause,

Among other maladies,

Female hysteria.

Although the word hysteria derived from hyster,

The Greek word for womb,

Hysteria was an umbrella term for a wide range of symptoms and behaviors labeled as abnormal.

It wasn't until the 18th century that medicine associated hysteria with the workings of the brain rather than of the womb,

And made the claim that men could experience it too.

In the first half of the 20th century,

A bout of hysteria could swiftly get you sectioned in an asylum,

Where you would likely meet many other post-menopausal women.

But today,

Who needs costly asylums when women can be offered such a wide range of medicines to supposedly restore their sanity?

The modern woman is no longer afflicted by a wandering womb animal within.

Instead,

She has her hormones that apparently behave with a similar spirit of their own.

Although a woman's body is intelligent enough to allow her heart to beat,

Her lungs to inhale and exhale,

Her eyes to blink,

Her gut to digest food,

And so much more,

Her female hormones,

We are told,

Act as if they are a living thing inside a living thing,

On their own crazy path.

Can you see how we have come full circle?

The ancient and persistent mistrust of women's bodies keeps the false crazy hormone story alive.

In turn,

The story drives the profits of a multi-billion dollar hormone industry and a growing number of private menopause clinics.

If we recognize that women's hormones can't actually wander and disconnect themselves from the body's divine intelligence,

And if we placed our trust in the magnificence of the female body,

We would understand what is actually happening to women in perimenopause and menopause.

We would become aware of the imbalances that we have innocently created in our lives.

We would see that the discomforts that we experience arise from the chaos that we surround ourselves with when we fall off the harmony of nature's path.

When challenges on the emotional and physical level appear during our life cycles,

Women don't need to go it alone.

Support and compassion for women in perimenopause and menopause can ease our journeys,

And discovering that the female body holds innate brilliance that can guide us during these sensitive years is transformative indeed.

Reviews

This is the wisdom I have been looking for!
The guidance encourages me and all women to trust the Divine Wisdom of our bodies and being rather than jump on the band wagon that still labels women as "less than".
Thank you for reassuring me that there's wisdom in the natural way of transitioning into menopause. Awareness is everything and your Presence is uplifting. 🙏🏼❤️

Thanks for another great talk! Can you please provide titles of a couple books to read that offer natural remedies instead of the hormones? Ones that are proven to stop any menopause symptoms and cause a significant buildup of bone density to help reverse osteoporosis? Thanks🙏🙏🙏

Another fantastic talk, Tania!! I so needed to hear this. You are quite literally changing my entire belief about peri menopause. We have all been conditioned to believe that our bodies are betraying us…how sad to think I actually believed this to be true. Thank you for explaining (what sounds so obvious now!🥴) that we should trust in the miracle of the body. After all, I’ve made it through puberty, pregnancy, labor/birth, illnesses, and so much more, without the aide of medicinal intervention. My body is AMAZING! I am grateful to you for reminding me of this ♥️ Your work will undoubtedly help to improve the lives of so many ! Love and blessings to you 😇

Supportive and nurturing through this unfamiliar time of life

Love your talk in menopause and perimenopause 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 I was in your Lice today too, so grateful for you 🧡

Thank you Tania. I am grateful to have found you through the end of your live today, and just listened to this track. I was just thinking last week how I wished I had been more educated about menopause and perimenopause earlier… and the importance of education in this area. Therefore, I am grateful to find you not only for confirmation for myself yet also for others who will be better prepared and accompanied through this journey rather than going into it “blind” / without harmonious support to help navigate. Blessings and thanks!

After this I've no longer say "my crazy hormones" and will go to value more my Divine Intelligence and that of my body. Thank you.

Again thank you Tania for this wonderful teaching 🙏🏻

I loved this perspective and so clearly explained. I’m interested to know more and look forward to more on this subject.

Tania this is brilliant and so helpful for women to get clarity around a societal narrative.

You have articulated perfectly what I have experienced myself. Menopause was fairly eneventful for me, but I am aware of my own learned thinking about women's hormones. It's so true, our female bodies are perfectly designed as are our changing hormones, for the life we are designed for. Our hormones make us strong, resilient and awesome!

AMAZING!!!!! This makes incredible sense and I love your confidence!

Enlightening 💡 Thenk you for sharing your knowledge and explorations of this so clearly