The less time we make for self-care in perimenopause, the harder our bodies have to work to achieve balance in the face of normal hormonal fluctuations that occur.
What’s more, the longer we deprive our bodies of this support, the worse symptoms can become.
But what is balance and how does it relate to self-care?
Think back to high school biology. Does the term homeostasis ring a bell? In case it doesn’t, here is a definition from Scientific American: Homeostasis, from the Greek words for “same” and “steady”, refers to any process that living things use to actively maintain fairly stable conditions necessary for survival.
Our bodies are working to maintain homeostasis — balance — across many bodily systems at all times.
For example, our bodies work to maintain a core temperature of 98.6. That is homeostasis at work. If you think about it – the best-known symptom of menopause is night sweats or hot flashes. Those are the result of hormonal fluctuations, which present a challenge to the body’s temperature-maintaining function.
The intricate system that governs our monthly cycles during our peak reproductive years begins to change as our last cadre of eggs is popped out. And these changes cause chaos to the system in the form of wildly fluctuating hormonal levels that can impact many parts of our bodies. In fact, any place in our bodies that has receptors for estrogen and progesterone — the hormones that fluctuate the most — can go kaflooey! Hormone lady illustrates this well.
Our bodies need our help, now more than ever, to maintain homeostasis. This is where self-care comes in, and becomes an imperative, not an option.
We share our top self-care mantras here. These are the starting point, but, as a recent New York Times article suggests, true self-care might go beyond these to include an acceptance of our “struggling self”. This new angle on self-care seems like an idea worth contemplating and sharing.
From the article:
“If we accept the struggling self, our state of mind will soon undergo a change,” Haemin Sunim writes. “When we regard our difficult emotions as a problem and try to overcome them, we only struggle more. In contrast, when we accept them, strangely enough, our mind stops struggling and suddenly grows quiet.”
Finding this mental place of rest is not always easy, even for a Buddhist monk, but the consistent practice of acceptance reduces systemic stresses and contributes towards that state of homeostasis – balance – that our bodies are working towards at all times.
If you’re worried that “accepting” is akin to “slowing down” or “going soft”, don’t be. As Tamy Forman, Forbes magazine writer and Executive Director of Path Forward, puts it in a recent piece, “self-care is not an indulgence, it’s a discipline”. We think that Haemin Sunim and Ms. Forman would agree that in reality, self-care is work. Work that helps you thrive – and strive – through this next phase of life.
So you, on the path to menopause, consider it a gift to yourself – and a discipline – to practice this broader view of self-care in perimenopause. The results may surprise you.
