Stress and the Menopause

During the perimenopause and menopause phase of our lives, their are significant changes to our hormonal balances with the drop of progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone. These typically begin to decline during our 40's and 50's, but this is variable to the individual women.

Stress plays a vital role in the increase of the menopausal symptoms, as it will overload the adrenal glands, meaning they become less efficient at producing oestrogen.

Another symptom of chronic stress is abdominal weight gain called visceral fat. The reason for this is that the body will retain this fat if the adrenal glands are not able to produce enough estrogen, due to being overloaded by chronic stress. The fat cells can produce oestrogen and so the body will store fat for this purpose. This fat is very hard to shift as this a result of the hormonal shift and stress on the adrenal glands and liver and not from overindulging.

If you are struggling to lose abdominal fat even though you have altered your diet, then this is likely to be the cause.

Keeping your stress in check is vital during this period and there are many tools for helping with this.

There are some simple techniques that you can implement into your daily life to help to reduce psychological, physiological and environmental stress.

Yoga, meditation and eating a diet that won't overload the liver, adrenal glands and spike your cortisol will dramatically effect your perimenopausal symptoms and menopausal symptoms.

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