Dealing With Stress During Menopause: 9 Proven Hacks To Combat the Midlife Monster

Menopause brings its unique set of challenges to your table. But if you think that perimenopause and menopause only affect you physically, you’re wrong. Stress during menopause is a serious problem.

Many hormonal changes that take place in your body during this phase of your life will also affect your mental wellbeing. Anxiety, stress, mood swings and depression are not uncommon.

But you know what?

Don’t brood and let a few silly hormones ruin your mojo!

Instead, let’s talk about how you can stick up a finger to that stress!

What About Stress During Menopause?

Stress is everywhere.

You’ll find shadows of it in the various tasks and chores that you have to carry out, be it at the workplace or at home.

Although everyone is familiar with it, not many will be able to explain what it actually is.

So what is stress?

Well, stress is actually how your body responds to various situations in your life.

This may refer to the tension you feel when you have just relocated to a new neighbourhood, or even a different country, and you’re trying to adjust to the changes in your life.

You may also feel stressed when something which you’re unprepared for occurs.

You may panic or find yourself easily agitated by trivial matters.

How Menopause Affects Stress Levels

Now, if you’re nearing or going through the menopause, then things get even more….shall we say, interesting?

Whatever caused you stress before, will now be tenfold amplified. Plus, the hormonal havoc will show up in the form of unpleasant symptoms you have to deal with.

Your partner leaves dirty laundry lying around? You’re not mildly irked anymore. You fly into an earth-crushing rage.

You make a mistake at work? Before, you’d brush it off with a joke. Now, you play out the embarrassment over and over in your head until you feel you’re going quite mad. You want to quit and crawl under the rock.

See that new tiny wrinkle on your face? Well, now there’s a reason to fall into despair and cry for a week.

Then add those annoying symptoms into the mix. Insomnia, hot flushes, bloating, palpitations, profuse sweats.

If you constantly feel stressed and distressed, then it’s definitely time for you to learn how to manage your level of stress so as to prevent it from taking a toll on your wellbeing.

How To Manage Stress In Menopause

Of course, stress does not necessarily have to be bad. This is because appropriate amounts of stress can actually be a good source of motivation. It’ll drive you to strive harder to achieve your goals.

The first step to managing stress is probably regulating your thoughts and reorganising your life in a way that will allow you to create enough space for self-care.

This will help you to feel better and approach everything with a positive outlook. From listening to music to talking it out with your family and friends, there are numerous ways of managing stress.

There are no wrong or right ways to deal with stress. If something doesn’t work for you, then it may simply be not suitable for you. You shouldn’t let that stop you. Instead, try out the different methods until you find one that is best for you.

If you’d like to learn more about managing your stress, do make sure that you read on.

What Is Stress Management & Its Side Effects?

Stress is something that everyone has to deal with in day to day lives. Every minute of each day, you may be experiencing different levels of stress, without even noticing it.

However, when it rises above a threshold level, you’ll start to feel the anxiety. You may also be easily agitated or feel fatigue due to the stress you’re experiencing. During such situations, you will feel prompted to look for ways to relax of unwind.

Since you can never get rid of stress permanently, it’s important for you to employ good stress management techniques, so that you’ll be able to deal with it on a daily basis. Aside from that, you’ll also be able to respond better in stressful situations, whether at home or at the office.

The Best Way To Manage Stress During Menopause

One of the best ways through which you can manage stress would be to maintain a healthy lifestyle. To achieve this, you can try to do a bit of exercise every day, so that you’ll able to relieve your stress by using it as a source of energy.

This does not necessarily mean that you need to go to your gym on a daily basis. All you have to do is to gradually increase the amount of your physical activities you do every day. Especially if you haven’t been getting regular exercise for quite some time now. Abrupt changes in your lifestyle may cause you to overexert your body, so you should try to slowly ease yourself into getting used to an exercise routine.

To start it off, you can do a few minutes of walking each day, and gradually increase the duration of time you spend walking or increase the distance that you cover day by day. Once your body has gotten more accustomed to getting regular exercise, you can also proceed to including running and biking in your exercise routine as well.

Besides having sufficient exercise, you should also pay attention to your diet. To eat healthily, you should eat healthy food packed with vitamins and avoid those that are oily and fat-laden. Apart from that, you should also give your body ample time to rest by having at least 8 hours of sleep each night.

By living a healthy lifestyle, you’ll be able to deal with equip your body with the necessary tools to manage stress. With regular exercise, healthy diet and sufficient rest, you’ll be full of energy every morning and ready to begin your day. If you stick to your healthy habits, you won’t feel tired easily even when you have a lot of tasks or chores to complete.

Such stress management methods don’t have any negative effects. In fact, it’ll improve your life since you will feel healthier. You’ll find that it is now easier to accomplish all your goals, making you feel happier and free from stress.

How To Handle Highly Stressful Situations

While everyone will find themselves in stressful situations every day, not everyone is able to properly handle stress.

When you feel overwhelmed by such feelings, it may take a toll on your health.

In order to keep yourself stress-free, you definitely should learn some techniques that will help you to deal with stress.

There are several stressful situations that one may encounter on a day to day basis.

Top Menopause Stressors

If you’re in that stage of your life where you start being bothered about your age, and the menopause is looming over you, then you’ll recognize the stress caused by physical and emotional strain of hormonal changes.

Bu there’s also the tress of looking after aging parents, dealing with teenage kids, and juggling the household with work duties.

You’ll be able to identify with the stress associated with deadlines and difficult tasks which your superior has designated to you. There are countless stressful situations which can happen at work. You may also feel stressed if you have been asked to complete a task which you do not feel prepared to.

For example, if you have just been assigned to make a presentation in front of a panel of executives at the very last minute, you will most likely feel the pressure. Even if you’re a seasoned professional, menopause can make you go into a panic mode.

At times like this, you should never allow stress to stop you from doing your best.

Hence, it’s extremely important to know when you are stressed and what you can do to resolve the problem.

How To Relieve Stress Instantly

When you feel easily agitated or overwhelmed by the things at hand, you should realise that you are stressed out. To handle stress effectively, you will first have to take control of yourself by taking deep breaths. This will help you to calm down and collect yourself so that you’ll be able to organise your thoughts.

You should also think of positive thoughts instead of thinking about the possible mistakes you will make. As this doesn’t take much time, it will definitely be a great way to manage your stress in any situation.

Of course, there are also times when you feel so stressed that you are unable to dispel it instantly.

When this happens, you may want to try out other means of handling and relieving your stress.

For any problems that may be troubling you, you should, first of all, keep in mind that there is always a solution for it. It’s just a matter of time before you find the perfect solution.

Secondly, you can talk to your friends and family so that they can help you to brainstorm and find the answer. This will help you to successfully find the solution.

For any problems that you face in life, it’s always important for you to handle your stress effectively.

If you simply let it be, your stress level may rise continuously and eventually cause a toll on your life.

Stress can also cause you to lose motivation to work hard and achieve your goals.

So follow these tips as mentioned above and handle your stress well today!

Why Social Support Is Important In Menopause Stress Management

It’s important for a person to know how to properly manage stress, since stress is one of the unavoidable things in life.

Stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it can also motivate you to work even harder and perform better at the workplace as well as at home.

However, if you’re unable to manage stress properly, then you may feel overwhelmed by it.

In severe cases, it may even cause a toll on your health.

Amongst the various means of stress management, one that stands out is social support.

What I’m referring to is the support that the people around you can provide, including your family, friends and the community.

With adequate social support, you’ll feel a sense of belonging and loved. This is important because it helps to build self-esteem. And we know only well that our self-esteem takes a big hit, what with age and meopause related physical symptoms. Solid social support will help you to cope with stress.

If you’re someone who easily feels anxious during stressful situations, then it would be a good idea to surround yourself with individuals who are willing to provide you with the support you need. If you have those people, you’ll be able to get the confidence boost you need and solve any problems that are troubling you.

For example, there are numerous stressful situations which occur at work. When you find yourself troubling over work issues, it may be good to talk about it with your family or friends. Even if they may not understand the situation completely, you’ll be able to relieve some of the frustrations and stress you feel. They will also give you the encouragement you need to fight on.

Furthermore, when it comes to situations where they’re able to help you, they will certainly lend you a helping hand.

As such, social support is extremely important when it comes to dealing with stress. It has also been proven that social support can contribute to good mental and physical health.

Conclusion

In conclusion, menopause is a time of massive changes, so it’s important to give yourself time to work through them.

While it is impossible to completely eliminate stress from your life, you can learn to manage it. Although stress during menopause may sometimes be overwhelming, you should never let it run your life or stop you from accomplishing your goals.

Instead, always try to take control of your thoughts, take a step back and re-evaluate the situation.

If you’re feeling stressed because you are afraid of making mistakes, take deep breathes to compose yourself.

You should also not feel shy to talk about your feelings with your friends and family. With the love and support from your loved ones, you’ll be able to feel more confident to take on the world.

As stress is bad for your physical and mental wellbeing, you definitely should try out the stress management techniques mentioned above.

Disclaimer

This article was written by Zuzana Halliwell. I am not a doctor or health professional and cannot be held liable for the information written here. This article is meant to provide information about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and diet. The content is based on my own personal experience and on information provided by medical professionals that is available to the public. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Do not use it as an alternative to seeking help from a medical professional.