Menstrual Cycle Changes in the Peri Menopause (Ep 15)

As a cycling woman you may have many menstrual cycles in the leads leading up to your menopause, aka peri menopause but often we didn't get the memo on what to expect.

Perhaps because talking about intimate areas of the body has been hidden in the shadow or swept under the carpet but knowledge is power. So find out what to expect and what you can do naturally.

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Transcript

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Yes. Welcome to the Holistic Health Sisters podcast of Wellness and Real Life Sisters Hannah Carr and Sarah King from the Holistic Health Collective. In this podcast, we're going to be sharing our passion for, of course, holistic health, but also spirituality, healings, hormone, plant medicine, seasonal living, our love of nature, and our love of community. So we are gonna invite you to take a pause and take a nice deep breath. And join us on a path of healing, of self-discovery and self-love, and of stepping into the brilliance of who you really are. This is a podcast for the seekers out there. Those of you who know there's more to life than just surviving or going through the motions, and you want more, more health, wealth, happiness, love, compassion, connection, trust, surrender, and more faith, and you want that for others too. So we can make this world a better place for us all to go and grab a cup of ceremonial grade cacao and join us as we explore what moves through us, that which is divinely led, so we can all move from fear to walls, more faith. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Welcome. You are with me, Hannah Carr, this week naturopath, nutritionist, and we are diving into understanding menstrual cycle changes during the perimenopause and are gonna be covering natural support strategies for you. So before we actually dive into the changes that can happen, let's just talk about what the perimenopause is. we all know what the menopause is and the perimenopause is, the period before the menopause where changes are starting to take place. So we could call it a transitional phase, and this phase can last a good. 10 to 12 years. It could start as early as your mid thirties or forties. Although of course, different experiences vary. And what's happening in that time is hormonal changes are taking place, but not only hormonal changes, powerful psychological and emotional shifts are happening as well. So really it's a time of reckoning of transformation and actually of reclaiming your needs. For a lot of women that we work with in their twenties and thirties and maybe even their early forties. They're really in a place of giving to others a lot of the time and really ignoring their own needs, and they get to this point of the perimenopause where they can no longer ignore their body's needs without getting a whole myriad of symptoms. So without becoming uncomfortable, I. So generally in the perimenopause, estrogen is becoming a little bit more unpredictable. Sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower, but progesterone tends to decline more steadily. And this can contribute to many symptoms during the perimenopause. So it's things like irregular periods, mood swings, anxiety, even feeling rage, which you may not have felt before. Brain fog and memory issues, that's a really big one that we hear in our community. Like it might be forgetting words, names, places, but actually just having a really low short-term memory as well. Sleep disturbances. I only spoke to someone last week who said, you know, one night last week she only slept for one hour. So sleep disturbances can be huge and ongoing and persistent, and that's coupled with hot flashes and night sweats. Not that you'll have all of these, but all of these are possible. Fatigue is a big one. Weight gain, especially around the middle. And then we've got things like vaginal dryness and discomfort, and even things like hair loss as well. And what we really need to get used to is a change in body as well, which is actually really difficult with social media and so many images of perfection. So when we were younger ladies, it would've been more magazines at the time, but now it's there every single day, on social media, these perfect bodies that, feels like we're meant to have even though we're starting to age. So what we want to help you do is view all of these things as signals, right? Not failures of the body, but they're signals to pauses, signals to reassess and signals to meet your body's needs. So that's just a little bit about the actual perimenopause itself. So let's go a little bit more into some of the menstrual cycle changes during perimenopause. And this is key, I think that this hasn't widely been spoken about before. And knowledge is power. So when we don't know to expect something, for example, flooding during your period, meaning, you know, you are releasing a lot of blood in one go and sometimes you might bleed through some of your clothes and you're not ready for that. You're not expecting that. You haven't got anything with you to prepare you for that. But if you it could happen, you can be a little bit more prepared or it may not come as such a shock. So it could be these heavier periods that I've mentioned. It could be shorter periods, it could be lighter periods, it could be longer periods. So in general, menstrual cycles are starting to change. You might have more spotting, you might have skip cycles, you might have surprise bleeds. So there's lots of changes that can be going on. You may notice that your PMS or your pm DD is worsening. And for us, from a holistic viewpoint, this is just really the body crying out for more space, more time, more nourishment, and those needs are becoming more urgent, and your body's trying to communicate that. You may also notice increased anxiety, irritability, or mood swings as well. So there's a great book called Period Power written by the author Maisie Hill, and she says that perimenopause is not a decline. It's a recalibration. A recalibration, okay? So this encourages you to actually work with your cycle and not fight your cycle. So let's talk about the actual patterns a little bit more. The cycles could be shorter cycles, anywhere from about 21 to 28 days. You could have, heavier bleeds. This could be because the body's trying to detox excess estrogens or, bad estrogens. They're sometimes called as well. You might have more pain or cramping, but generally ovulation is becoming less consistent, and when that happens, it can impact your mood, your libido, and your energy as well. So one of the things that we really recommend is really tracking your menstrual cycle. But also tracking what we call your inner seasons. So we attribute the menstrual cycle to the four different seasons in nature, winter, spring, summer, and autumn. And in your winter phase, this is the part when you're actually bleeding. This is a time like in winter that you need more rest and more reflection time, and after winter when you're in your follicular phase. So before ovulation. It's like you are in your inner spring and this is time to have new ideas, you're starting to come out of the cave a little bit. You might be doing a little bit more, and then usually around the time of ovulation, we can liken that to summer. And you feel like you can be out more, you can be. Maybe networking. You could be sociable, and then after summer, of course, comes autumn. So this is a point to reflect, to evaluate, to complete things before you're going to rest again. And this all may be a little bit more unknown during menopause. This timing may be or a little bit more unknown During the perimenopause, you may need to have more compassion, more understanding, and more patience with yourself. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of information around how you can help yourself naturally. But being a naturopathic nutritionist and Sarah and I working with women in a holistic method, we have really seen how much diet makes a huge, huge impact on your period, more than you could possibly imagine. And I'm gonna give you one short example about that. we run a monthly online women's health membership called the Holistic Health Circle, and every Friday I answer questions that the community have posted that week about their health. a little while back someone asked about their period and said, all of a sudden my period's really heavy and it's uncomfortable. And I asked a few more questions. I said, have you done anything different this month? That's always one of my first questions as a nutritionist, what's changed? And she said, well, the only thing is I went on holiday, and I think she said from memory that she had like a drink, you know, once or twice an alcoholic drink. And obviously it wouldn't be that because that's not a lot. Right. It could be that I had some, what I call unhealthy chocolate. It was around the time of Easter we had some mini eggs in, and that's not normally you probably, if you know us, you'll know. That's not the kind of chocolate we eat. We don't really eat commercial chocolate. We stick to our ceremonial great cow, our homemade chocolates, and I couldn't resist these mini eggs and I ate them. And a matter of days later, I broke out in lots of spots around my forehead. I knew it was the mini eggs'cause it's the only thing that had changed and it was the only thing that I'd done differently for a long time. And so the following month for this particular client, she obviously didn't drink that month and reviewed her periods and said, actually, it has gone back to normal. So that's how impactful diet can be on your menstrual cycle. And as we start to get a little bit older, we could have. Probably got away with it in our twenties. You know, not enough sleep, too much alcohol, too much sugar, you know, maybe a lot of working out. But as we are starting to age, we just need to start taking care of ourselves in a different way so here's a few like quick little tips, but with diet, the body would really like to support estrogen with. One of the ways is more cruciferous vegetables. This is things like broccoli cow and cauliflower can be really supportive. We want to include lots of healthy fats, so you know, we talk about ceremonial Greg ca cow all the time. That's generally with our communities. I don't think we've done it on the podcast yet, so we will make some episodes on it specifically, Chocolate in its natural state that's grown for ceremonial purposes and it has loads of healthy, good natural fats in there. But some other types of good fats are avocados and nuts and oily fish. And also you want to look to balance your blood sugar levels. So we've had a whole month on balancing blood sugar levels. Breaking it down into weekly challenges on things that you can do, but generally you're trying to do things like reducing cine and alcohol and refined carbs. That's some of the high level things that you can do, but there are some more specific things that you can do that would help you as well. So there's a lot more with natural support. There's, herbal remedies, there's lifestyle practices, there's emotional and mental support that you can put into place as well. And we've got loads and loads of resources that will actually be able to help you. So inside the membership that I've mentioned a couple of times already, we actually have, five years worth of monthly workshops now, and I've made a little list of some of the workshops that will help. Our members. But as well as all the information that we're gonna be sharing, it'll be in May, 2025 on understanding the menstrual cycle changes in the perimenopause and the natural support strategies. So what we've covered in this podcast, but a much deeper level with our four weekly challenge as well. But there's other sessions as well that our members can catch up on. So we've got one called menstrual cycle tracking, so a whole training on that. One on embodied menstrual cycle awareness. We've got one specifically on the perimenopause. We've got one on a morning routine, which is really important actually because you need to be tracking things like your menstrual cycle and your energy levels. If you haven't got a morning routine. It might be that you've not got an organized way to remember to do it each day. So we created a download for our members, where they can get that morning routine and we've got, a download that they can print out and keep by their bedside tables. And then we've got a really interesting session called Ignite Your Inner Enchant that was run by Sarah. And what this session helped you to do was. There's the old versions of us, like you, you might have like the slightly glamorous version of you or the more youthful version of you, or the fitter version of you, or the slimmer version of you, or the more confident version of you from the past. And we sort of hold onto this past version of ourselves and sometimes wish it back missing all of our current, wisdom and gifts that we're holding. And so this was to actually. Say thank you to those old parts of us and to release them with love and to step into what's potent at the moment in your life. So to call in. What's current for you and to make friends with that. So this is, some of the kind of emotional work. So lots and lots of sessions for our members to dive into as support around these menstrual cycle changes and understanding them a little bit more and it's not just learning, it is taking the aligned action. So actually making these changes to reduce your pain, reduce your cramping, reduce your, spotting, reduce your heavy bleeds, reduce your. Anger, your impatience, all of these kind of things by bringing balance to your whole body, mind, and spirit. So if you would like to do some of the deeper work, we'd love to invite you to check out the Holistic Health Circle. You can do that on our website. Go to www dot holistic health Collector. Co UK and all the information on our monthly membership, the Holistic Health Circle is inside there. And we'd love to dive into this in a deeper way with you, exploring those lifestyle tools, exploring those herbs, exploring some more of those supportive foods as well to really make a difference. So, you know, you may want to consider things like HRT or bioidentical hormones or other support, but. The first steps for us from a holistic point of view is to make sure that you've got, balance in your body and your lifestyle to start with. They're the first steps and not to skip them, to then need to, for example, jump to medication, which may have side effects. It might be able to support you, but actually you might not need it if you get this natural support in place or if you do need it, this natural support is going to help you to thrive. So much more. So some takeaways from this is, to track your periods, track your menstrual cycle. You could do that on an app. You could do it on, a calendar that's hanging on the wall. You could do it in your diary any way that feels good to you. And to track how you are feeling in different parts of your cycle. And that would be a really, really good first step in understanding your own menstrual cycle changes and getting the support in place that you need during the perimenopause. Well, we hope this episode has helped you. Thank you for, joining in and joining the conversation. We are over on social media at Holistic Health. UK let us know any changes that you've made through your diet, your lifestyle that has supported your perimenopause, your menstrual cycle changes. We would love to hear. Thank you a million times, Ava, for joining us on this podcast episode. You can support the show by giving us a follow on any podcast platform you're listening to this on. If you already follow us, then thank you so much and maybe share this episode. If you think of someone, someone comes to mind where you think they'd really benefit from listening to this. This is one way that we like to spread the love with our friends, is sharing podcasts or playlist. So let them know that we are thinking about them. So just send it on to them with a few words about why they might enjoy it. And if you'd like to check out any of our in-person events or retreats or our online offerings, head over to our website, www.holistichealthcollective.co.uk. We'll see you in the next episode.