Tools to calm the nervous system are good to know about at any time but in our experience, particularly in perimenopause.
While most of the research on mood and perimenopause has focused on depression, anxiety-like experiences also arise on the path to menopause. It will take more research to uncover why this is but we suspect that much like our thermoneutral zone is disrupted by hormonal fluctuations which lead to hot flashes and night sweats, a similar thing is happening with our autonomic nervous system. Our autonomic nervous system functions in one of 2 ways: our sympathetic pathway is activated to produce a fight or flight or freeze response when danger is sensed and our parasympathetic system is activated in the absence of threat or danger. This pathway is often called the rest and digest pathway. It’s a calm state. So if hormonal fluctuations are affecting how this sensing system is working and causing an over-activated sympathetic system, tools to calm the nervous system are good to have at the ready.
In our 2020 WLB survey, many people reported a heightened stress response. It was described in many ways such as: feeling less able to cope, “feeling like I can’t calm down on the side”, and having a “hair trigger” fight or flight response. These were some of the experiences reported on the WLB site and then endorsed in the research.
So, here we share tools to calm the nervous system even before the research documents this as an official perimenopausal happening.
3 tools to calm the nervous system
#1 Andrew Weil’s version of the relaxing breath (4-7-8).
This technique is everywhere these days. I am not sure where it originated, but I first learned about it from Dr. Andrew Weil on a CD set I bought more than 10 years ago.
While I’ve sampled many 4-7-8 versions, I find Dr. Weil’s direction and counting to be the easiest to follow.
#2: Insight Timer is another app that I use frequently.
Insight Timer has a very broad offering from a simple adjustable meditation timer to talks, guided meditations for starting your day, winding down, getting back to sleep and courses related to many elements of stress management.
#3: The Breathe App
This is a very simply laid out app that offers counting for several times of breathing techniques: 4-7-8, box breathing, power breathing, coherent breathing, You can adjust the counting for each. There are also customizable meditation times and custom breathing options.
Some research on tools to calm the nervous system
While you may not think of it as breathwork, sighing can be a form of breathwork and it has been studied for its ability to change mood and reduce anxiety. In this post, we share what the research demonstrated.
