Perminopause—What’s Going on with Your Body?
By Katy Gladwin
Women’s hormones during perimenopause: What is going on with our bodies? As soon as we sort of figure everything out—maybe our cycles finally make sense after kids, or we learned how to take the edge off during the week before our periods start—everything changes…again!
All of a sudden, certain foods don’t sit right anymore. You’re waking up either 1000 degrees, with a leg cramp, or because you remembered you didn’t do something, and you’ll never get back to sleep again. You notice your periods have become irregular again, sometimes closer together, sometimes spacing WAY out. Your skin is breaking out…? The brain fog and focus difficulties are real, and you’re just…so…tired.
Perimenopause is not-so-delightfully referred to as the “second puberty.” FUN! And it is. Hormones are fluctuating, and your body is trying to maintain balance while also under stress assault. So many women are told “yep, that’s just your lot” or “nothing can be done” or on the flip side, “here are some hormone replacement medications, maybe this will help?”
There is a middle ground though!
Think of this time as a reimagining of how you care for yourself. An invitation to shift into radical selfcare. Lean in to nourishing yourself, finding joy, and welcoming peace.
First of all, if medication is the right choice for you, I think it can be a great option. For the last two plus decades there has been huge stigma and fear around hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that is unwarranted and based on bad information (about how women’s bodies work). With the right provider, who is doing the right testing, you can absolutely manage your symptoms with medications.
However, if you’re hoping to delay using medications, hoping to need less, or never planning to use them at all, there are a ton of non-pharmacologic options out there. As a Board-Certified Integrative Women’s Fertility and Perimenopause Health Coach, I support women with the non-medical aspects of their healing journeys.
So, here’s where I would begin if we were trying to relieve some of the symptoms of early perimenopause and beyond.
Start with a self-evaluation:
How much of your time is spent intentionally, and how much is on auto
pilot?
What do your community and nurturing relationships look like?
What kind of support can you lean on, and what kind of energy are you
using in supporting those around you?
What brings you joy?
What does sleep look like?
Why do you choose the foods you choose?
Where do you spend your time and energy?
Does that align with how you want to be and feel?
From here we can ask, “How much energy do I have to make changes to what I’m doing now?” This will guide what kind of changes you can make, large or small, as we start getting into the work of adding nourishment in.
Understand your “Why. ”Why do you want to feel different? What is the way you feel getting in the way of? What do you wish was different?
You can imagine how much good juicy info. we can get out of this conversation and how this could lead us down many different roads. (This conversation by itself can make a huge difference in motivation and directions for which shifts a person might make.) Shifts, and the order they are made, will be different for everyone, and individualized care is very important: there is no one size-fits all remedy.
Once we get an idea of where we’re starting and what relief might look like, we can start making changes.
Our hormones are chemical messengers. They are released (or not) based on the signals they are getting from the rest of the body. Our central nervous system is always on and working to maintain balance. It will always do its job, but we can make it easier by supporting our bodies in nutritive and restful ways.
It is very hard to heal root causes if we don’t consider how the body sends, receives, and interprets information.
Your body and mind MUST find times of safety in order to heal. Some stress is healthy, and our bodies are excellent at being resilient and seeking homeostasis. When there is no safety, our bodies are stuck in a constant state of survival, the sympathetic state.
The mechanisms our bodies have to keep us in a stable state are always working, but energy gets shifted from these automatic responses when our nervous system thinks we are being chased by a lion. And guess what? Our brains don’t know the difference between a lion, a story about a lion, or fluorescent lights! I’m sure you can think of 10 other things that your body responds to as though you’re being chased by a lion. (Public speaking, huge stores, traffic, kids saying, “mom, mom, mom,” running through all the to-do lists in your head, etc.…) When your nervous system is overworked and burned out, you will also feel overworked and burned out. When the systems that are intended to keep metabolism stable, oxidative damage to a minimum, and blood sugar levels safe get pushed into constant survival mode, all of your systems will start to feel out of balance–nothing happens in a vacuum.
Simple ways to shift into moments of parasympathetic nervous system response (the rest and digest, healing state) might be taking a nature walk, breath awareness practices, body scan (notice that you, in fact, are safe), getting enough quality sleep, eating enough calories, and intentional movement.
These simple practices have also been shown to lower which is essential to hormone health. Even when meeting with someone with high levels of inflammation, the nervous system is still the first thing I consider. When considering inflammation, we talk about environment, relationships, stress, and of course food. Sometimes eliminating feels like the right thing to do, sometimes just adding more, easy to digest nourishment is all we need. You can talk to your provider about adding supplements, such as NAC, or black seed oil to lower inflammation.
One thing to keep top of mind when it comes to understanding hormones is how important blood glucose levels are when trying to maintain balance. There are a number of ways to support healthy blood glucose levels, and the first thing I would offer as a suggestion is to keep a food diary, as well as tracing how you’re feeling around meals and snacks. Sometimes we think that we’re having the sugar high jitters, when it’s really a fast decline in blood sugar, and vice-versa. The goal would be to have appropriate rises and falls, but with big fewer spikes and crashes. When trying to manage glucose levels, usually we can do this by adding in more nourishment. Adding fiber and protein to meals, making sure we’re getting the right amount of fats for your body, and herbal support, while pre-and probiotics have their place, too.
As we move through body systems, and optimize their function, many of the “normal” perimenopause symptoms can lessen or disappear completely.
I spent a little time here with nervous system, inflammation, and nourishment, but as you can imagine there are so many more conversations we can have about ways to help the body heal, rest, and maintain balance. Finding moments of rest and joy can be just as powerful as reducing inflammatory foods. Regular movement can support your hormones as much as focusing on blood sugar. With a plan that fits your life, you can make big strides in feeling more energized and focused, and more in control of your healing and hormone journey.
Katy Gladwin owns Sacred Roots Healing in Ypsilanti, MI. Gladwin is a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach with further certifications in Integrative Women’s, Fertility, and Perimenopause/Menopause Health Coaching. Gladwin has also been working in the Ann Arbor area for 15 years as a doula and childbirth educator. Gladwin supports her clients and students to find their authentic path through life’s big changes. Find out more information on her website at SacredRootsHealing.org or email katygladwin@gmail.com.
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