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Yoga can help to decrease stress and anxiety as well as digestive issues that sometimes accompany the menopausal stage of life - lets dive in!
Peri-menopause and menopause affect many of us during our life, and some people are affected more than others. There are many ways to manage the symptoms that sometimes come with these stages of life, and yoga is an excellent starting point in my opinion.
Hi and Welcome to your Journey into Yoga! I’m Avery Rich and am so happy to have you along for the ride!
Today we have an excellent question from Sarah, who says
Peri-menopause and menopause affect many of us during our life, and some people are affected more than others. There are many ways to manage the symptoms that sometimes come with these stages of life, and yoga is an excellent starting point in my opinion.
One of the major symptoms of this, what I will call “time of life” is stress, anxiety and even depression. Yoga helps to manage these symptoms and each and every posture is specifically aimed at helping with these effects. Forward folds help to bring calm to the body and alleviate anxiety; heart openers help to manage depression by giving the heart a boost. When we focus on the breath and being present we help to manage stress as well.
Getting into more specifics, bloating and digestive issues are very common complaints from peri-menopausal and menopausal women, another area that yoga poses can nicely address. Twists in yoga, whether they be standing, sitting or lying down twists, all help to work into our internal bodies, which in turn help to aid in digestion. I would direct you to episode 11 as a great starting point for a nice relaxing twist pose, where we work through bent knee twist.
Bloating - ahhh such a pleasant experience. The good news is that there ways to help alleviate bloating through yoga…way back at episode 3, we worked through a posture called wind reliving pose, which is also often referred to as wind relieving pose. This one is an excellent way to help with occasional or even chronic bloat, so I encourage you to have a listen and try it out.
Lack of sleep (sound effect of snoring) - this one is tough. very tough. Sleep is so important for our bodies and our mind. Our physical bodies literally repair themselves in our sleep so without a proper night’s sleep, we often feel down, stressed and sometimes even unwell. Peri-menopause and menopause can often disrupt our sleep and it is important to try and maintain healthy and full sleep patterns so that we can stay well both in mind and body. Sitting and breathing with our eyes closed and our mind clear for a few minutes before we prepare to good to bed can be helpful in calming the mind. There are several yoga poses that can help to relax you before bedtime, and the one that I find is my go to is legs up the wall.
I encourage you to listen to episode 19, where I guide you and discuss legs up the wall and it all it has to offer, and specifically, how it can really help take you from a busy day to a good night’s sleep. Whichever yoga pose makes sense to you, remember that it is important to stick to a nice quiet pose to encourage your body and mind to a restful place.
As a side note, and perhaps not exactly yoga related, make sure what you put in your body is not exacerbating any symptoms you may be having - bloating is often made worse by too many carbonated beverages and alcohol, whereas sleep can be negatively affected by too much caffeine - so enjoy these things but try and do so in a moderate way.
Sarah thank you for your wonderful question, and I look forward to addressing more next time…until then Namasate.
