The basics of importance of self-care in preparation for perimenopause
ByA 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.
Related posts:
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.