Every year, September 12 is observed as Mindfulness Day to raise awareness on mindfulness and its benefits. It is a practice of connecting yourself with your current thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, and surrounding nature with openness.
Mindfulness is a skill that you can develop through meditation or any other related training, that can help you:
- Lessen the stress burden in your life.
- Regulate emotions.
- Focus attention on the present moment.
- Observe thoughts without any judgement.
How Does Practicing Mindfulness Alleviate Menopausal Symptoms?
Technically, menopause occurs when menstruation ceases and the ovaries stop producing eggs. But this doesn’t happen overnight! Your ovaries stop responding to the hormones – oestrogen and progesterone, thereby leading to a lot of physical changes that are set over a period, starting from as young as 30 to your midlife. Menopausal symptoms include:
- Irregular periods
- Hot flushes
- Brain fog
- Night sweats
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Sleeping problems
- Joint pains
Are commonly experienced during menopause. But, it does not necessarily mean that all women face the same symptom, some women might even not notice it! This makes it even worse for many women to know if their symptoms are even due to menopause.
In recent times, mindfulness has garnered recognition among people of all ages and backgrounds to manage stress and help improve their well-being, as it is essential to living your present moment in a non-judgmental way. So, practicing mindfulness helps in:
- Prioritizing your thoughts.
- Managing your stressful moments.
- Treating hot flushes.
- Balancing memory loss anxiety and
- Coping up with any unwanted experience.
A study showed that mindfulness has helped relieve night sweats, hot flashes, and other menopausal symptoms as well. This study conveyed that menopausal women who attended an 8-week mindfulness course reported feeling less dilemma and stressed and were able to navigate their hot flushes or night sweats easily. Three months after the course, these women have also reported that there is an outstanding improvement in their sleep patterns.
Hence, these studies have affirmed that by learning and living mindfully, you can positively respond to menopause symptoms, reduce negative judgments and start gaining more control of the reactions to the symptoms that you are experiencing.
Conclusion
Mindfulness is all about awareness. Knowing what is happening emotionally and physically in every moment and making necessary choices is how you respond. With mindfulness, you stop what you are doing, at least for a few minutes, and choose to connect with your body, breathe and allow everything to settle down.
Menopause is not a loss and instead it is the final step of acceptance and a new doorway. Add mindfulness to your menopause and feel the liberation from stress and other anxiety related issues.
