One of the biggest lessons that the perimenopause hormonal shifts have taught me is that less is most definitely more.
If I am honest, I have spent my whole life up until perimenopause, competing with myself as to how much I can do and measuring my value based on my output. Whether it’s how much decorating I can get through in a few months, household chores in a day or the work to do list.
On and on, faster and faster, more responsibilities, more more more. The only thing I wasn’t getting more of was rest.
It was as though resting was cheating. I know, I am not alone in this. But the problem is, when we let our output define our worth, we set ourselves up for disappointment, feeling of failure and often illness.
This is a very important lesson that perimenopause has taught me. And it’s not that I hadn’t heard wise people say it or that I had missed the ” if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to make time for your illness” insta posts, it’s that I just didn’t appreciate the truth in it, until it really impacted me.
You see, when we are dashing, rushing and barely stopping, we get stuck in a fight or flight response. This means our adrenal glands are pumping out cortisol and our body is focusing on survival over our sex hormones, which create a hormonal imbalance all by itself. Then along comes perimenopause and blow’s it all up…
What can we do?
There are many things we can do to better prepare ourselves for perimenopause but one of the biggest, is learning to slow down, to actually prioritise ourselves and our wellbeing. It will feel odd at first, like you should be doing other things. But over time, you can learn to get yourself out of fight or flight and back to neutral. You will honestly be amazed at how much better it makes you feel.
If you’d like to learn more about how our hormones work and the changes you can make to support you or someone else going through it, check out our 45 min online course – Understanding menopause by clicking on the link below.
