The menopause and andropause –birthing a new wiser you - part 1

How can we enjoy a fulfilling life after 50?

You might also want to read the blogs I have written on the menstrual cycle, or watch my YouTube videos, because the different qualities of the phases of our menstrual cycle help prepare us for the changes of the menopause, and even the andropause.

An opportunity to rebirth a new you – but why can be this so hard?

I want to focus on the gifts and opportunities, of the menopause, andropause and ageing, because so many people emphasise problems and pathologies. Amongst some circles the menopause is even presented as an illness caused by oestrogen deficiency. This is not the case – our hormones are simply going back to our pre puberty levels. We were hardly deficient then. Like puberty, there can be challenges. We need to make adaptations to shift into the second half of our life. Like puberty, these challenges can help us grow and shift into a new way of being.

Since these changes are a natural part of our ageing process, why do so many people, especially women, seem to suffer so much? Firstly I wonder how many women do in fact suffer. Of course I work with women who find this time challenging, even though they may have been looking after themselves, but I have other clients who find it liberating. I think one reason that many people suffer is that they are approaching this stage of their lives already worn out, stressed, balancing too many things (job, children, aging parents) without sufficient support.

I include the andropause because I find it interesting to compare what happens for men. Changes in their fertility and sexual expression happen more gradually and male fertility doesn’t end fully in the way that it does for women. The life cycle of the egg and sperm are quite different. You might want to do the visualisations I have created for them.

For all of us, ageing and changes in our fertility, offer an opportunity to birth a new self. An image I love is to see the changes around our ageing, as like the changes of pregnancy and birth, but this time, we are the baby! It can be an opportunity to reconnect with our time in the womb and birth, and transform any limiting patterns, especially if we didn’t get what we needed when we were a baby. I will be writing other blogs on how to connect with those times in safe and nurturing ways.

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

If we have children, we probably need to shift the focus more into caring for ourselves. Obviously this is harder if our children are still young.  Our ageing offers an opportunity to learn how to nourish ourselves like a baby in the womb, how to mother ourselves and then birth our new self and be gentle with that new self while we learn different ways of moving and being so that we can find our new place in the world.

Most of us, are freer to express ourselves in the way we want to, without the ties of raising young children. If we have elderly parents to look after, it’s important to recognise our own ageing process and take time to focus more on our own needs as well as theirs.  If we do, we have the opportunity to create a richer and more integrated self and even transform our relationship to our outer world.  Some people live their most fulfilling and creative years after 50. In most traditional cultures as we are we enter a new phase of wisdom and those over 50 were considered to be the wise elders of their tribe. How the outer world views us has a huge impact on how we experience this time. If, like today, the narrative is one of declining importance and brain function, then of course we are going to resist it.

What are the gifts and challenges?

Gifts

I find new expressions for my creative energy, respecting that my physical strength is waning, but my capacity to direct my energy is growing.

I rediscover the playfulness and flexibility of the child, with my newfound wisdom.

Challenges

Can I let go of limiting patterns which keep me held in the past, depleting my energy?

Am I able to let go of my youth and embrace my ageing gracefully?

Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash

A different view of ageing - how ancient Chinese and Indian knowledge can help us

 Many people see life after 50 as staving off mental and physical problems but this doesn’t have to be the case. We can learn a lot from the ancient Chinese, who saw our natural life span as 100 years - at 50 we are only half way through. They felt that if we are able to embrace the changes then we can live well for the rest of our life. For them it was important to retain the flexibility of a young child, rather than becoming stiff and resisting. We can then meet each moment fully and respond to it appropriately. In a way we are going backwards through our life. We start our journey in the fetal position, moving to upright and then going back to the fetal position as we age, curling back into ourselves. This happens to some people even in their 50’s or 60’s and for others not until they are in their 90’s or beyond.

If we live to be 100 years, then of course our physical strengths and capacities will be very different than when we were 50, but it doesn’t mean we have to slow down. I took up running when I was 60. I know many people who are living fairly active lives, walking, gardening, even running and hiking well into their late 80’s. As I write this, I think of Velta Snikere Wilson, who recently died, just shy of her 102nd  birthday. Born in Lativia in 1920, her mother found her meditating at 2 and she practised yoga as a young child. She moved to London after the war where she became one of the first yoga teachers in the 1960’s and later set up the British Wheel of Yoga to train yoga teachers. She stressed listening to the wisdom of our body  “you have an object which cannot escape your observation and is a good focus for meditation.”  She taught yoga into her 90’s and, during the last year of her life, when she was confined to bed, continued doing hand movements (mudras).

Even before I started studying Chinese medicine, I practised yoga. My gym teacher at school introduced it to us. Much as I love the gentle fluid movements of Qi Gung, I also find that yoga is an important way to support the well-being of my body. If you look on my YouTube channel you will find that many of the movements I show for working with the Extraordinary Vessels of Chinese medicine are inspired by my yoga practice as well as Qi Gung. Physically looking after our body, is important to support us in our ageing.

A gateway into creativity, our second spring

The average age of menopause for a woman is around 51, half way through the 100 years. The Chinese called the menopause “our second spring” and my friend and colleague Kate Codrington, used this as the title for her book on the menopause. I love her humorous and empowering way of looking at this time. She explores the seasons of Chinese medicine as tools help us with the changes. She also likes to focus on the creative aspects of this time, and I am going to be talking with her soon (watch this space) about different ways we can express our creativity as we age.

Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

What exactly is the menopause?

The menopause can only be defined after our last menstruation - one year if we are older than 52 or two years if younger. On average it is from 48-55, with the median age in industrialised countries being 51. Recently it has become popular to talk about the peri menopause as the years leading up the menopause, but peri means around and so strictly speaking can include after the menopause. I prefer to say pre and post menopause for clarity.

How long does this process of stopping take? It’s hard to fix a time because it is a gradual physiological process and reflects how our bodies are constantly adapting through life. You can see from the chart that our hormones have been changing all our life. Levels of oestrogen and progesterone peak around age 35 and start declining, with more fluctuations between 42 to 42.

Our number of eggs has been declining since we were in the womb (listen to “Journey of the Egg”). It is thought that when their number reaches a critical level, levels of GNRH (a hormone) rise in the brain causing a rise in FSH and LH in the ovaries. This makes the remaining eggs mature more quickly, shortening the follicular phase. The luteal phase tends to stay the same length. With a shorter follicular phase, an egg is not necessarily matured enough for ovulation in each cycle. Without ovulation there is no menstruation. This means that cycles become less regular, and their length varies. The ovaries start to decrease in size. When there are about 1,000 follicles left, the body stops maturing the remaining eggs, there is no more ovulation, and the menstrual cycle is switched off. The remaining eggs are reabsorbed back into our body, to be transformed, like all the other eggs which didn’t make it to ovulation, into something new which our body can use.

I wonder why then it is called the menopause? What are we pausing? We continue with our life but express ourselves in a different way. Perhaps even using this word is unhelpful.

Changes in FSH and LH affect the production of oestrogen and progesterone. Progesterone levels decline more quickly at first. Oestrogen declines more slowly and not as much - its levels are relatively stable in early pre-menopause. This means that oestrogen becomes the dominant hormone throughout the cycle, not just in the follicular phase. Most pre-menopausal symptoms are caused by lack of progesterone rather than lack of oestrogen – contrary to popular perception. Oestrogen levels fluctuate in the year or two before a woman stops menstruating and then drop more. After the menopause oestrogen and progesterone drop back to the levels they were before puberty – a fact I find fascinating. We really do go back to a “second spring”.

After their last period, women produce more of a different kind of oestrogen (oestrone) in their ovaries as well as in body fat, skin, the brain and adrenal glands.

Each woman responds differently to the hormonal changes and the hormones themselves are team players in a complex system. The levels of hormones shown in the chart can only indicate an approximation of the changes. 

In the next blog I will be exploring how the ancient Chinese felt we could support these changes and you will learn about the gateways of opportunity. I’d love to hear your responses to this first blog and especially what you think of the words “menopause” and “andropause”.

What about men? I explore their changes in the next part of this blog, but for now, to note that they continue to produce sperm for the rest of their life, and so there is no pause or even stopping for them. The andropause is an even less appropriate term for them than the menopause is for women! Men, like women, respond the changes in their fertility and hormones very differently.