The Cycles of Menopause
Starting menopause, while anticipated, is always a shock, but during our lifetime our body is continually going through cycles: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly... Do you pay attention?
As females, we pay attention to our periods, but should we be doing more than that?
We have the daily Circadian Rhythm, a 24 hour cycle of when we should wake, eat, and sleep.
From Frontiers for Young Minds: “Did you know that your cells can tell the time? Every cell in your body has its very own clock. These clocks are unlike any other. There are no cogs or gears. The time is set by the rotation of the Earth, so that our bodies are perfectly aligned with night and day. While you may not even be aware of their existence, these clocks control many aspects your life. From when you eat and sleep to your ability to concentrate or run fast, the clocks command all. How do these clocks work and how do they tell the time? What happens to our clocks if we watch TV late at night or fly to the other side of the world?.”
Most women's menstrual cycles align with the time it takes for the moon to cycle through all its phases. Does the moon affect our menopause as well?
Now when I was growing up and getting older, there was only one Menopause. Now even menopause has stages and cycles:
Pre-Menopause
Perimenopause
Menopause
Post-Menopause
Sadly, unfortunately, miserably, our menopause has no official end date.
When you try a new product, something – anything to ease the symptoms, do you track when you take it? You could just be feeling an ease in your symptoms naturally and think that it is the product you are using.
With me, it was the placebo effect. I was told a product would work, it did for a bit (but where was my cycle at) and then the product did not work anymore.
Your menopause will go in cycles, if you don’t track those consistently you have no idea if a product is working for you.
The labels tell us to try the product for 30 days – 45 days - 60 days, I tried to buy into that. Seriously, if a product doesn’t work in two weeks, it won’t work at all.
I am not discounting those people that medication helps but for those of us that have chosen or been told they cannot take a HRT, monitoring our cycles could be a benefit to our menopause.