What is Perimenopause?

As women begin to age, our hormones change as well. You may hear all about menopause, but many women are unaware of the stage of life known as perimenopause.

During this stage, your moods may change as well. It can be rocky and turbulent. You may experience weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, sadness, and irritability. These rocky times can seem worse surrounding your menstrual cycle, as progesterone gets lower leaving you with higher estrogen and increased PMS symptoms.   

For some women, it can even start in their 30s, with changing cycles and moods.  

Symptoms of Perimenopause

Are you feeling like an angry teenager again?

Many of us begin to struggle with:

• Mood swings
• Decreased sex drive
• Weight gain
• Irritability
• Fatigue
• Irregular periods
• Sore breasts
• Acne—especially around our cycle

It can get ugly if we don’t have the tools to support ourselves through this time. These hormonal changes can impact all areas of life, including personal relationships and careers. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Tons of Perimenopause Support in a Free Summit called 50 Ways to Women’s Wellness!

Many of us are just starting to have children in our 40s, and we want to have energy, and feel good so we can laugh and play and enjoy our children. We want to feel the same way we did in our younger years. To make matters worse, women often feel alone going through perimenopause. It’s not something we openly talk about it, rather we often try to hide it.

When we as women begin feeling ‘turbulent,' our emotions are held against us. In our culture, emotions are seen as a weakness. Women are taught to be emotional, but not too emotional.

Ladies, I have good news for you: Our feelings are our greatest superpower! And you don’t have to suffer through this phase of your life. There are tools and practices that can not only ease your transition through this time but give you renewed purpose and pleasure. 

Finding Pleasure during the Perimenopausal Years

Diet and exercise play a key role in feeling good, mentally and physically, during this phase of life. However, these aren’t the only factors. There are so many other components we need to consider to truly feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy as we age. We need to take the time to nurture ourselves, finding a balance in our moods and hormones.

We can still have laughter, play, and sexual pleasure. We can feel good as we age. Perimenopause doesn’t have to be a turbulent time.

We absolutely can survive and thrive through our 40s, feeling and looking amazing!

The key here is to consider putting yourself first. As women, we are expected to put ourselves on the back burner, and take care of everyone else first. If you don’t take care of yourself first, the people who love you will also suffer. Think about areas of your life that you can take some time to nurture. Think of the things that you can gently let go of. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, take small steps towards better wellness.

Some tips:

• Focus on nurturing your whole selves, rather than cherry-picking diet and exercise (often with poor approaches, poor nutrition and overtraining).
• Stick with real whole foods and try to avoid processed foods
• Prioritize your sleep: Sleep is Queen!
• Make time for playing (remember, big people still need to play)
• Make time for relaxation and “unplugging”
• Take some hormone balancing supplements and herbal stress adaptogens
• Consider working with a functional medicine provider, to help get to the root cause of your health struggles
• Get adequate sunlight-even just a few minutes per day make a big difference.
• Perfect is boring! Time to be more gentle with the expectations you place on yourself
• Seek Support! You can’t do everything alone.

Check out Dr. Melissa Sonner's eBook, Self-Care Simplified, so you can learn how to put yourself at the top of your to-do list. Get Dr. Melissa’s most powerful self-care systems and secrets. It’s filled with simple self-care systems and tools that can help you finally prioritize and schedule your own self-care each day!

When you download Self-Care Simplified, you’ll also have the chance to register for 50 Ways to Women's Wellness for free! 50 Ways to Women's Wellness is a groundbreaking, online event created for women, by women to help YOU cope with the exhausting pressure of being a superwoman expected to do everything perfectly, all the time.

Over 7 days, you'll learn the BEST secrets for women's health and healing, self-care, disease prevention, weight loss, energy, relationships, mental health, empowerment, financial strength and more -- from over 55 of the most inspiring women on the planet!
 
This summit will touch on these very same topics more in-depth on Day 1 and Day 2 of this life-changing, 7-day summit for women:

Day 1: Emotional Healing and Self Love
We've gathered inspiring leaders in the area of emotional wellness, healing and transformation to take your healing, self-care, and capacity for self-love to a whole new level: Fran Drescher, Dr. Eva Detko, Donna Gates, Amanda McVey, Darieth Chisolm, Sarah Anne Stewart, Misty Williams, Randy Taran.

Day 2: Sex, Hormones, and Pregnancy
Go deeper into solutions for balancing and upgrading every aspect of your sexual and reproductive health: Susan Bratton, Dr. Anna Cabeca, Felice Gersh, Dr. Amy Killen, Joette Calabrese, Isa Herrera, Dr. Nasha Winters, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo.

Perimenopause is a Beautiful Time!

Yes, life does get more and more demanding as we age. However, we can still have loads of fun! Throughout these years we begin to gain a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We are able to look pass nonsense and see a bigger picture.

It’s easy to put everyone else first, but my putting yourself first and meeting your needs, you can be a better partner, parent, friend, and employee. You can enjoy the transitional years! You are worthy of this!