Archive for Self-Care
The basics of importance of self-care in preparation for perimenopause
Posted by: | CommentsA Decade of Self-Care
Self-care in the forties is very different from what we did or didn’t do in other decades. The old bromides about eating well, exercising, and taking vitamins are completely retooled with new energy, excitement, and creativity. I see a subtle distinction between self-help and self-care, although some might say I am splitting hairs. Self-care places a very healthy and essential emphasis on how we can more fully appreciate and respond to the changes we are going through, taking body, mind, and spirit into account. In our forties we have rich opportunities to embrace change, perhaps more than in any other time of our lives. During this transition, we develop a powerful and integrated philosophy of how to take care of ourselves.
We’ll look at nurturing and caring for all of ourselves: making conscious decisions to halt our busy pace, seeking relaxation and calm in new ways with ourselves and with other women, moving our bodies in ways that let us enjoy our strength and power, and eating combinations of foods that have a particular ability to nourish our changing nutritional needs. The richly varied textures of life in our forties give us nearly limitless ways to revitalize our bodies and spirits.
Meditative Moments During A Decade of Self-Care
Making perimenopause a positive time starts with slowing down long enough to enjoy it. This philosophy flies in the face of the way some women live when they first come to see me with concerns about their perimenopausal changes. Their lives are relentlessly busy, and although the thought of moving at a more deliberate pace can be intriguing, it is also a bit frightening. Connie is the quintessential do-it-all type of woman, holding down a responsible job, coordinating her three children’s schedules, volunteering as a Sunday school teacher, and regularly stopping by her parents’ home to check on them and bring them books, food, flowers. Now, at 48, the apparent seamlessness of her life was starting to unravel, at least in her eyes.
“I’m having trouble keeping control of my moods,” she told me. “There are days when I wake up feeling either depressed or irritable, and the first thing my husband or kids say to me completely rubs me the wrong way.” Connie’s use of the word control was significant, she went on to say that she was struggling not to let her family, friends, and coworkers know that anything was troubling her.
I explained that hormonal shifts could certainly have a role in the mood changes that were alarming her, but I also pointed out that her heavy schedule could contribute to her feelings of being cornered, resentful, or anxious.
“When was the last time you took any time for yourself?” I asked her. “Have you had the chance recently to do something meditative that would replenish and restore you?”
“Well, we did take a vacation last summer.”
“Did you plan and organize the whole trip?”
She nodded. The trip had been fun but not exactly restful, she said. Most of the time had been spent on the go, with visits to relatives and long outings every day. “I felt responsible for everything on the trip,” she admitted. “I know it sounds strange, but I even worried about the weather.”
When I meet a forties woman like Connie who hasn’t had a quiet, restorative interlude in her life for a long time, I usually ask her to think back and remember a time (it can be as far back as childhood) when she felt thoroughly relaxed and content. A lot of women wrinkle their brows as they concentrate, because the feeling of being calm or contemplative rather than rushed and busy seems like a very vague memory.
“I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a child,” Connie said. “I remember that as such a peaceful time. Sometimes we didn’t even talk much, but the silence was very companionable. The sun would filter through the canopy of trees over the stream, and everything was very quiet. I always felt kind of dreamy.”
Connie and I talked about what it would take for her to revisit the tranquility of that time by the stream with her father. “More and more women are fly-fishing as a hobby,” I said. “Maybe your next vacation could include some fishing, if you would enjoy that again.” In the meantime, since summer was months away, we looked at some immediate steps Connie could take to apply the brakes ever so slowly on the hectic pace of her life.
In our forties we can make our own meditative moments when and where we choose. As some women do, you might want to practice meditation that involves sitting quietly and repeating a favorite word or phrase to empty and calm your mind. At the same time, you can create a vision for yourself that pleases and soothes you. Until Connie could actually get some time away, I suggested that she try taking a few moments to visualize herself beside the shimmering stream where she spent summer days thirty years ago, calling back that calm and safe feeling. “It’s best if you can carve out a specific time to visualize yourself in a peaceful place,” I suggested.
With women like Connie, who have programmed their thinking to believe that unless they are accomplishing something or getting things done, they are wasting time or being unproductive, the act of stopping and taking time for ourselves doesn’t always feel comfortable at first. “But you are accomplishing some extraordinarily important things, physically and emotionally,” I said, seeing Connie’s raised eyebrows when we talked about meditation and visualization.
“You help your heart by making a conscious decision to reduce your stress, that helps lower your cholesterol. Your body will put out less Cortisol, the stress hormone. You’ll give yourself a chance to call upon your internal resources, the power at the very center of your being.
You’ll build your energy supply back up. Your mind will feel less cluttered because you’ve made room to think creatively, calmly, and insightfully.”
Other women have told me they “don’t know how” to relax. In fact the ability to relax is inborn. Every time your body returns your pulse, blood pressure, breathing, heart rate, and adrenaline levels to normal after a stressful incident, you are practicing your innate ability to relax. Sometimes in our forties we just have to retrain ourselves a little to tap into this capability. “Think of taking time to meditate and relax as a different form of discipline,” I suggested to Connie, as I often do to women who seem anxious about dedicating time to themselves.
You can start by deciding on one soothing thought or image, as Connie did, seeing herself quietly waiting for fish to pull on her line. Think of the place you would most like to be, and place yourself there for a few moments each day. For Cherie, it was a remote beach in western Ireland she once visited. Doreen made a mental tour through her grandmother’s sprawling and comfortable house in the South, long since sold. Ariel insisted that she couldn’t think of any image that was relaxing to her at first, but then her face slowly broke into a smile as she said, “I went to Europe one summer when I was in college. I visited the oldest church in Paris on an afternoon in the middle of the week, when it was about a hundred degrees out. Inside it was dark and cool, and there was nobody there. The idea that people had been praying there since the twelfth century was very moving to me, even though I’m not mat religious myself. Maybe I should think of myself inside that ancient church once in a while.”
The methods for creating stillness and quiet in our minds certainly aren’t limited to meditation or visualization. But I often recommend that women consciously take a few quiet moments to reactivate their relaxation response, even if it has lain dormant for years as they charge through life. The activities we can enjoy in our forties, alone or with other people, can also be very meditative and replenishing. Sometimes it’s just a matter of putting our own creative spin on something we’ve always enjoyed.
Pat has loved to read ever since she was a child, but she recently changed her reading list. “I kept up with a lot of professional literature and journals,” she told me, “and if I had time to read anything else, it would be history or biography. A friend of mine gave me a book of Jane Kenyon’s poems for my birthday, it sat on my shelf for months because I hadn’t read poetry since high school English class. My friend never asked me how I liked it, but one day after we had talked on the phone; I took it out and read one of the poems. I just loved it! I finished that book, and then I started reading other women poets, all different voices from different eras. Now I usually read a poem or two before I go to bed. It’s a very peaceful way to end my day.”
There can be a meditative quality to gardening, sewing, cooking, writing, painting, sculpting, whatever you choose. In fact, your forties can be the perfect time to exercise your creative energy by rekindling former interests or discovering new ones. For several years Andrea had let gardeners take over the care of her flowers because she no longer had time for all the upkeep they needed. When she decided to take more time for herself, she reclaimed one flower bed and dug it up, replanting new flowers in different colors and varieties. “The gardeners know not to touch that section now” she said. “It’s mine. Even though it’s a small patch of our yard, I could spend hours out there. I had forgotten how much I love turning the dirt over, and how excited I get when the first tender shoots start to come up. I just didn’t realize how different it is when someone else does the gardening for me. I always get pleasure from looking at our flowers, but I’m so glad I’ve started taking care of some of them myself again.” I like Andrea’s story because it richly illustrates how we need to take care of ourselves in our forties, doing things differently, quite literally planting new seeds, reacquainting ourselves with pleasure in simple and meditative ways, and not allowing others to experience our pleasure for us.
The Basics of Self Care When You Are in Your Forties – Play Hard
Posted by: | CommentsWe can bring whatever level of drive we want to our work and athletic endeavors, but self-care in our forties also means taking carefree time to play and enjoy ourselves. It is a very feminine trait to be the consummate organizer and efficiency expert, with an unending list of tasks that must be done. As paradoxical as it may be, the forties are the time when we need to be as disciplined about scheduling fun or play as we are about working and attending to other people’s needs.
A couple of years ago, I participated in a two-day women’s health seminar where the draft agenda was packed with clinical topics that were all very relevant to the audience, which was to be several hundred well-educated and informed women in a major metropolitan city. “When will the women play during this event?” I asked the organizers. At first they looked at me as if I had asked something utterly outlandish. But I explained my position that play has an integral role in our physical and spiritual health. I talked about enhancing the seminar by designating time for humor, relaxation, cups of tea with new-found acquaintances, and music, among other things. We ended up completely revamping the seminar, and it was a great success. The questionnaires women completed after the two days showed that although they were hungry to learn about how their hormones are changing and ways they could gain more control over their own health, they also loved the gift of time to have fun.
Play is whatever you want to make it in your forties; there doesn’t have to be a product or an outcome in the end if you don’t feel like it. Learning to play might be something like relearning the art of relaxation¡ªit can take some time, and you might feel self-conscious at first, wondering guiltily if anyone is watching you as you do nothing at all, if you please.
Again, the lessons of childhood can teach us something later in life: favorite forms of play from decades ago may have an adult counterpart. One woman I know who loved dolls as a child started spending an occasional leisurely afternoon looking in antique stores, sometimes finding shoes or a ribbon for a doll she was restoring that had belonged to her great-grandmother. “It’s like a treasure hunt,” she said. A former tree climber heads for an arboretum, a half hour from her home, with a sack lunch and nothing else but the intention to watch the trees mark the seasons’ change. A music lover and one-time chorus member parks herself in the listening booth in a music store, switching from opera to hip-hop to country, depending on how she feels. And another woman who loved to “play house” with her sisters sometimes tours real estate open houses in elegant neighborhoods in her community, admiring the architecture, furniture, and decorations and speculating about who lives there.
You can remember your childhood play and bring it back to life as an adult, or even relive it in its purest form, as Jody does when she gets practically elbow deep in modeling clay, finger paints, bubbles, crayons, and glitter with her 6- and 8-year-old nieces. “My sister says they scream with excitement when she tells them I’m coming over,” Jody told me. “I don’t know who has more fun, though, the girls or me.”
I chatted recently with a woman on a plane who was loaded down with official-looking documents and a laptop computer, we both were returning from business trips. As we inquired politely about each other’s lives, she mentioned that this had been a fabulous trip. She had looked up two old friends in the city where she had had her business meeting, and on her last evening in town, they laughed and danced and even sang karaoke until two A.M. “I need to do more of that,” she told me, looking every bit the buttoned-down professional and most unlike a karaoke singer. “It was so much fun.” I would guess that she was in her mid- to late forties, and I could hear the joy in her voice as she talked about playing with two old friends. Her experience was spontaneous, and unexpected pleasure certainly has its own charm. Yet I also strongly urge you to think consciously about playing, even write it on your calendar if you have to, and make sure you have a few relaxing, unstructured, playful hours at least every month. The more we play, the more we learn how good it feels, and the more strongly we will crave time with that carefree aspect of ourselves that helps make us complete.
The Basics of Supplementing Your Self-Care During Perimenopause
Posted by: | CommentsThe number of vitamin, mineral, and herb supplements crowding the shelves in drug, health food, and grocery stores can make it difficult to figure out which combination best serves our changing bodies.
Supplementation is important in the forties, because most of us don’t get every single nutrient we need, every day, from our food. You need at least 1500 mg of calcium daily to keep your bones strong, but other essential ingredients can complement your diet and increase your health and well-being.
Some women prefer to take vitamin, mineral, and herb supplements separately, using several products. This practice is fine, as long as you’re careful to take appropriate combinations and amounts. Overall, I favor a simple approach to supplementation: take one good multiple vitamin/mineral supplements each day, along with a calcium citrate supplement. This approach works for me personally for a number of reasons. One, I find it’s easy to remember to take my vitamin/mineral and calcium supplements each morning after breakfast. Second, I don’t have to spend a lot of time and money shopping for a variety of supplements. Third and most important, I’ve found a couple of vitamins that work well for me: ProCycle by Cyclin Pharmaceuticals in Madison, Wisconsin, and Optivite by Optimox in Torrance, California.
There is also a ProCycle Gold formula with extra calcium that is specially formulated for perimenopausal and menopausal women, but I’ve found that I feel best when I take ProCycle with a separate calcium supplement.
Choosing a vitamin and mineral supplement doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated or difficult. These are the guidelines I recommend to the perimenopausal women I see at my clinic:
- Look carefully at the ingredients, and the percentage of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance they provide. U.S. RDA amounts are based on guidelines developed by the FDA.
- Remember that RDAs are general guidelines meant to apply to healthy people¡ªtheir amounts do not vary according to age and gender. Individual requirements may vary, and at some times, such as during perimenopause or when recovering from illness, more than the RDA of certain nutrients, such as vitamin C or vitamin I6, may be beneficial. The vitamin/mineral supplement I take, for instance, has higher-than-RDA-levels of the B-complex vitamins: vitamins B1, B2, B6, and B12. I find these B-complex vitamins very helpful in minimizing water retention and depression.
- Vitamin E can also be helpful during perimenopause, regulating estrogen levels and relieving hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and breast soreness. An antioxidant, vitamin E can also provide heart disease protection. (Antioxidants prevent certain molecules from binding to cells and damaging them.) Some women use vitamin E oil as a lubricant directly in the vagina to help with tissue dryness. When taken orally, vitamin E dosages range from 100 to 600 I.U. per day. Vitamin E and iron don’t mix, however, so these supplements are not to be taken together.
- Nutrients such beta-carotene, selenium, chromium, potassium, and manganese also have health benefits, although no U.S. RDA has been established for them. I recommend choosing a supplement that includes them rather than taking them individually.
- As I’ve mentioned, you need at least 1500 mg of calcium per day, more than the U.S. RDA, to maintain strong bones. Calcium citrate is the form that is best absorbed as we grow older and our stomachs produce less of the acid needed to break down calcium.
- Some vitamins can have toxic effects when taken in too-large doses. And the ratio of the vitamins and minerals you take is important, too much of one can counteract the effects of another. That’s why I don’t suggest randomly mixing individual vitamins and minerals. It’s too easy to throw off the essential balance you need to make sure your body absorbs vitamins and minerals properly.