This Week’s Thrive In Five Is About Managing Your Mental State
It’s the last in our Thrive in Five series around perimenopause and menopause. So far, we’ve talked about sleep, energy, and getting educated. This week is all about managing your mental state.
Finding Balance
There are two great advantages to managing your mental state: first, it can positively affect your sleep. Being in a relaxed, parasympathetic state as your head hits the pillow will allow for deep and restorative sleep. Secondly, managing your mental state helps to reduce stress. This does not mean eliminating stress, but rather achieving balance. As human beings, we able to withstand a significant amount of stress, providing we have cadence. What I mean by that is we take time to recover after each stressful event. I want to encourage you to have one daily non-negotiable that reduces your stress.
Meditate For your mental state
For me, it’s meditation: I wake up, sit there and meditate for 10 minutes, and then the day begins. So, for you, it might be at the start, middle, or end of the day. You may spend 10 minutes at your desk, looking out from a window or balcony, or even dog walking. Breathwork and meditation are powerful tools for reducing your resting heart rate and blood pressure. In addition, they help to remove excess cortisol from the blood, leaving us feeling less stressed.
Recovering From Stress
Managing your mental state is particularly important when your body has been physiologically challenged, for example by oscillating or depleting estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels during perimenopause and menopause. An alternative to meditation can simply be doing something that is meditative. As I mentioned earlier, this could be a dog walk or being out in nature. It could even be helping others, or just doing something you love like painting, reading, or knitting. For more information and advice, listen to our podcast episode, Doing Something That Is Meditative.
A Daily Non-Negotiable
During perimenopause and menopause, we must do whatever we can to manage our mental state and minimize stress. Having a daily non-negotiable will help your body to recover and better cope with the symptoms. That brings us to the end of our Menopause Month series, I hope it’s been helpful. In case you missed my webinar, Raising Awareness of Menopause in the Working World with Dr. Tanya Patrick, you can access the recording on-demand here.
Wellbeing Resources
Check out our free posture guide for desk workers. Many of us frequently sit or stand at a desk, our posture guide will show you how to set up your workstation, stretches to do to avoid getting tight, uncomfortable muscles, and how to correct your posture to stay relaxed and energised whilst at work.
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