Have you noticed your body isn’t looking or feeling the same as it did in your 30s? Is your beloved body stubbornly expanding, and you have a sense that it’s out of balance? Do you feel more anxious, angry, low, or just not yourself?
Are you tired in the morning because your sleep is disturbed by hot flashes and cold without your doona? Is your hair lacking its usual lustre, and you could swear you had so many more fine lines than yesterday?
I feel you, beautiful woman!
Peri-menopause has made its glorious entry, and you are now transitioning into a new phase in your life. It’s easy to lean into not loving this phase – it’s when Pitta and Vata are in conflict as one is not quite ready to let go, and the other is too keen to take over.
This may be surprising to hear, but simply because your mum, auntie, or grandmother had a certain condition does not mean that you, too are condemned to live with the very same condition. There is so much recent scientific evidence to show what Ayurveda has known all along (you may have heard of epigenetics, which is how our genes can change expression depending on our internal and external environment).
Here are a few of my favourite books on the topic nurture over nature, making a clear point that the way you live can turn certain gene expression on or off.
“Self Heal By Design- The Role Of Micro-Organisms For Health” by Barbara O’Neill
Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food Paperback by Catherine Shanahan and Catherine Shanahan M.D
It doesn’t have to be this way.
While going through peri-menopause and menopause is not an option (at least at the moment), and it’s something we all have to go through, suffering is optional. Yes, you can be in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond and feel and look absolutely amazing!
Seeing and feeling the signs of imbalance
Brittle hair/sagging skin
Fatigue/exhaustion
Insomnia/hot flashes/night sweats
painful sexual intercourse
Chronic inflammation presents as joint pain, arthritis, eczema & asthma, psoriasis, allergies, diabetes, heart issues, brain fog, thyroid issues, fertility issues, and so on…
Most symptoms of ‘dis-ease’ are preventable
We live in a culture that has conditioned us with beliefs, incorrect information, and ways of living that are out of alignment with our bodies. The journey back to alignment requires unlearning what we have been taught and tuning into the messages from our body instead of continuing to overstep, push, wear out, and increase imbalance in our physical, mental,, and emotional systems.
There are many things I wish I’d known in my younger years
The side effects of the contraceptive pill in my 20s
The innate cleansing that menstruation offers requires more rest, ease & contemplation.
Excruciating pain and fainting with almost every cycle were desperate cries from my body demanding me to change gear.
It would never have crossed my mind that pain was not normal. Instead, I ignored the language of my body and soldiered on, causing psoriatic arthritis and rosacea. I was so out of touch with my body that I just didn’t realise. In hindsight, I realised I was quite anxious – I had never thought of myself as anxious because I was so positive and driven – yet it was my “normal,” and I had no idea what feeling truly calm was like. I had to learn the hard way how such imbalances accumulate in our bodies over time – and my guess is, since you are here, you did, too.
Peri-menopause and leaning into vulnerability
As one of our most potent superpowers diminishes (oestrogen you blow my mind), we experience changes throughout our sacred bodies: from the urinary tract to the heart and blood vessels, bones, breasts, skin, hair, mucous membranes, pelvic muscles, and the brain. Those changes are inevitable, and supporting our bodies through those changes (and even before – the earlier, the better) can make all the difference between thriving and barely surviving.
Can you count to five?
Here are my five favourite tips for tapping into your feminine, finding your balance, and regaining control over your beautiful body. This is not an overnight fix, but with continuous love and care, you will rebalance, rejuvenate, and out-glow yourself!
1. Prioritise cooling foods
If you struggle with hot flashes and night sweats, I invite you to avoid energetically heating foods and reduce foods that are very heavy and hard to digest, such as meats and aged cheeses, in the evening. Instead, be kinder to your gut, enjoy a lighter and earlier dinner, and make lunch your biggest meal. If you choose to incorporate meats and cheeses onto your plate, do so at lunch when your digestive fire and capacity are at their best. For dinner, you will want to opt for dishes that are mostly plant-based, not too oily, yet moist, smooth, and warm without any heating aftereffects. Great examples are soups, Dhals, lentils with vegetables, stews, etc.
Oh, and one more note on cooling and heating foods: please don’t blindly believe all the lists you can find on the internet regarding this. I have noticed that there is some confusion going on. To name a few examples, tomatoes are often listed as cooling foods when truly they are heating in nature. The same is true for lemons, while limes are more cooling in nature. So, if in doubt, listen to and trust your body. Your body never ever makes any mistakes, and she is always right.
2. Boost your inner & outer glow with the Indian Gooseberry (Amalaki or Amla)
To boost the glow of your skin, hair, and nails and kick your immunity up another notch, I invite you to try Amalaki (or Amla). Amalaki, the Indian Gooseberry, is the most concentrated form of natural vitamin C. Since the whole fruit is used rather than an active ingredient, your body recognises Amla as food and can easily assimilate it.
The Vitamin C in the Amalaki fruit is bonded with tannins that protect it from being destroyed by heat or light. Beyond giving you a natural face-lift over time and giving your hair back more natural colour & shine, the Indian gooseberry will also strengthen your heart, improve muscle tone, nourish your brain and mental functioning, fortify your liver, tone your urinary system, flush out toxins as well as accumulated heat. If you are going through perimenopause or menopause, you will truly appreciate all of those benefits that this amazing berry can give you since it is exactly those body functions and systems that may be more weakened by the decrease in oestrogen. Isn’t it mind-blowing how nature always has us covered and provides everything we need if we are open to looking for the right support? You can buy raw Amla powder from any Ayurvedic health food provider. Here are 3 that I find amazing. Amla – Certified Organic Herb Powder from BioVeda , Amla Berry Organic Powder from Austral Herbs, Amla Powder Organic from AyurOrganic
3. Sync your sleep rhythm in line with Mother Nature
Sleep is your inbuilt rejuvenation and cleansing mechanism. Since hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, and body aches and pains are not exactly sleep-inducive, I am inviting you to set yourself up for the best sleeping success. This involves you being able to fully harvest the potency of your sleep hormone melatonin. To be clear, melatonin is much more than a sleep hormone. The latest research suggests that melatonin has the incredible ability to protect us from the proliferation of breast cancer. The only problem is that our modern lives are full of artificial light and nightly activity, inhibiting our body’s ability to synthesise melatonin. This is why I am inviting you to return to sleeping when it is dark outside and wake up at sunrise. There are so many more health-promoting and up-your-total-glow benefits to syncing your sleep with Mother Nature, but this would go beyond the scope of this article.
4. Boost your digestion and up your glow
In Ayurveda, we link everything to your digestive fire or agni. When your digestion is great – you can easily assimilate nutrients and do not accumulate undigested waste products in your body. Unfortunately, for most people, this is not their reality. Having great digestion is a rarity these days. As the foods that are available to us, as well as the way we eat and when we eat, changes, so does our ability to process what we eat. Our bodies were not designed to deal with accumulated toxins in our physical, mental, and emotional bodies.
We see this in the increasing numbers of chronic diseases, anxiety, depression, cancer, and so on. If it is your goal to up your total glow while you are going through peri- and/or menopause, it is key that you boost your ability to digest all the food you consume daily. There are lots of simple ways to start to reset your digestion.
Some of my favourites include having a small piece of ginger with a little bit of rock or Celtic salt and lime 20 minutes before eating, drinking CCF tea during the day (CCF tea stands for cumin, coriander, and fennel infused water), cooking with a combination of the following 5 spices of coriander, cumin, ginger, fennel, and cardamom, as well as starting to eat and intermittently fast mindfully, stop snacking and commit to seasonal holistic cleanses to allow for a deeper clean out of the gunk.
5. Support your innate cleansing mechanisms
By now, I am sure you will be aware of how incredibly important it is to boost your innate cleansing mechanisms so you can show up as your best version of yourself. As I know how overwhelming it can be to take up a new habit and let go of old ones, I believe in creating routines that feel easy, fun, and doable.
I don’t have time and energy for action plans that don’t work in the long run or create yo-yo cycles. And I bet you don’t have either.
So, here is what I suggest:
Pick one of the following innate-cleansing invitations and commit to it for the next 30 days or however long it takes to not think about this activity anymore but to have it so deeply incorporated into your healthy-licious life that you do it without effort and thinking. You may add another one to your life only once this is the case.
If you try one and it does not stick because your body simply does not like it at that moment, trust your body and pick another one. Everything is in constant flow, and not everything has to be right for you at any given moment.
Trust yourself. Trust your body.
- Start your day with tongue-scraping
- Start your day with oil pulling (virgin coconut oil – cooling – or sesame oil – heating are great options)
- Do some self-massaging with warm oil whenever you can make it fit into your day
- Cleanse your nasal passages and throat with saline water & follow up with sniffing some oil and gargling with some oil (sesame oil was traditionally used here; if you want to go more sophisticated, there are lots of beautiful Nasya oils for sale)
- Go for an early morning walk (if you can go for at least 20 minutes, that would be amazing)
- Do five sun salutations in the early morning or afternoon (not too late)
- Practice some Pranayama in the early morning or afternoon
- Practice nose breathing during the night and when you are moving (mouth tapes are an amazing aid for at night)
There is so much more you can do to reset your body, mind, and emotions and truly feel your amazing glow again. The above are just a few simple tips with huge rebalancing effects. And yes, I am repeating myself, but I feel I cannot say it often enough. Please don’t let yourself be overwhelmed or fall into the I-will-do-everything-at-once trap. All of the above suggestions are meant as a pick-one-after-the-other approach.
I find it truly unacceptable how little we all still know about peri- and menopause and that there is still so much stigma around it. Even I catch myself, again and again, feeling really uncomfortable admitting that my body is changing and that I was going through peri- and now in menopause. Let’s change this. It is not okay that so many of us are suffering in silence when there is a way more empowered & feel-good way to transition into our wisdom years. Are you with me? Let’s start with us and teach our daughters how this phase in our lives is done with so much healthier glow, fun, and harmony. Are you in?