Many women experience mood changes such as increased irritability, anxiety, feelings of overwhelm, inability to cope, mood swings and depressive feelings — just to name a few — as hormonal patterns change during the menopause transition. In this video (2:08), we discuss mood changes with Dr. Marcie Richardson. Dr. Richardson is the Director of the Menopause Clinic at Atrius Health and an Assistant Clinical Professor at Harvard medical School. Full Transcript below.
Transcript
Welcome to Interviews with experts, today we share a clip from our interview with Dr. Marcie Richardson, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist. Dr. Richardson is also the Director of The Menopause Center at Atrius Health and an Assistant Clinical Professor, Harvard Medical School. How hormones affect mood.
In this clip, Dr. Richardson explains how hormones affect mood generally, she also talks about why mood issues are worse as hormones shift during the menopause transition, and finally, she offers thoughts on what can help with mood.
I think you have to concede that women are affected by their hormones and that our mood changes during our monthly hormonal ups and downs. One important part of that is to just accept it. And to know that there are certain times of your cycle when you won’t feel as good as you do at other times.
Why are mood issues worse during the menopause transition?
One of the big problems with perimenopause is that is as your cycles start to get irregular, it’s not predictable. And that makes women feel really out of control.
What can help with mood changes?
Again, when you are talking about mood, you have to take care of yourself. You have to get enough sleep, you have to exercise.
Exercise is the single most important thing you can do to keep yourself physically and mental healthy throughout the lifespan.
If you are perimenopausal and you are having a lot of bad mood problems, if you go to your therapist you’ll get an antidepressant if you go to your gynecologist, you’ll get hormones. There are hormonal interventions that can help with mood and there are psychotropic drugs that can help with mood.
The place always to start, is to try to figure out what the contributing factors are and to accept the hormonal aspects of those. And also to take care of yourself.
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More on mood changes here.
And a post from a woman with menopausal anxiety.
